


Our own little world

by cottonscent



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: 1980's, 1990's, 2016, 2020, Adult Losers Club (IT), Awkward Boners, Awkward Conversations, Awkward First Times, Best Friends, Beverly Marsh is a Good Friend, Bird Watching, Canonical Character Death, Childhood Memories, Coffee Drinking, Comedian Richie Tozier, Coming Out, Coming of Age, Derry (Stephen King), Eddie and Richie are annoying, Existential Crisis, First Crush, First Dates, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Friends With Benefits, Gay Richie Tozier, Growing Old, High School Losers Club (IT), Implied Sexual Content, Internalized Homophobia, It's Not Gay If It's For Science, Losers Club (IT) Friendship, Losers Club Reunion (IT), M/M, Memory Loss, Minor Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Minor Bill Denbrough/Beverly Marsh, Multi, Mutual Masturbation, Nerd Richie Tozier, New York City, Oh what a mess, Other, POV Maggie Tozier, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Repressed Richie Tozier, Returning Home, Reunited and It Feels So Good, Richie Tozier & Stanley Uris Are Best Friends, Richie Tozier Has ADHD, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier is a Mess, Richie Tozier is canonly the smartest loser you guys, Richie Tozier-centric, Richie works at a rental, Sleepovers, Slice of Life, Stanley Uris Knows All, Teenage Losers Club (IT), The Clubhouse (IT), Time Skips, Traveling, Weird Plot Shit, angst with happy ending, but it's richie so what's new, covid19 doesn't exist, everyone is fed up with richie and eddie, experimenting, grandpa richie, kinda sad tho, leaving for university, lots of swearing, meeting again after death, puberty issues, sexual awakening, the losers have grandchildren, very bittersweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:55:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 19
Words: 79,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25667800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cottonscent/pseuds/cottonscent
Summary: Richie remembers, but not everything.He remembers that Stanley Uris was the best, that they went on Indiana Jones missions in the rain, drank coffee with too much milk and sugar, had sleepovers and talked late at night. He also remembers the bittersweet feeling of loving, wanting to be loved and how complicated things could get when the butterflies flutter at the wrong time, when thinking about the wrong person, of the wrong gender. Richie remembers his friends and the world they created, a separate world that's in Derry, but not quite Derry at all. Spring cleaning the clubhouse, the high school graduation, getting kicked out of class. Teasing, laughing, crying. The frustration of wanting more, of wanting less.He's now 44 years old and finally makes the journey back to reunite with everything he left behind - with everyone he left behind. Unfortunately, he does not remember that two of his favorite people won't be able to meet him there. But then again - nobody who dies in Derry ever really dies, right?
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Beverly Marsh, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Richie Tozier & Stanley Uris, Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris, The Losers Club & Richie Tozier, everyone crushes on bill let's be real, platonic richie tozier and stanley uris
Comments: 11
Kudos: 26





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello folks!
> 
> This is my contribution to a fandom in need of more content, and I specifically devote this work to the friendship between Richie and Stanley. All the losers are included though and although some of them appear a bit more frequently than others, I hope that I did them all justice.
> 
> This work is pretty much finished but I haven't divided it into chapters and there's some editing that needs to be done. We'll see how much time I need to post each chapter, but I can promise you that this work won't get abandoned. I'll add more tags as I go, but I don't want to spoil everything right away. Also, I considered changing the year to 2021 because of Covid-19, but I'd rather just pretend that you can travel as much as you'd like, so let's just forget about the current situation for a moment.
> 
> Also - There's some period-typical ideas in this, but I don't agree with any of that. Nothing too graphic, but still. And Richie's vocabulary is what it is, so the language isn't exactly clean either. Y'all probably don't even care to begin with, but now I've warned you at least.
> 
> I hope you'll like this one! Comments and kudos are very appreciated! (I'm always a slut for validation ok)

**June 6th 2020**

This was exactly why Richie hated offices. The plain walls, the piles of documents, folders, bright ceiling lights, the seriousness that weighed down the air — everywhere he turned, he found more reasons that reminded him of why he refused to work in an office to begin with. If anybody had told him that showbiz wasn’t as free and fun as it seemed on TV, perhaps he would have packed his bags and left the human civilization altogether instead.

He could have had a nice life on an island in the pacific instead, but not Hawaii because there were too many celebrities there. Somewhere isolated, somewhere where he could wear whatever the hell he wanted and do nothing unless he wanted to. He could have strolled around in shorts all year around and have fresh fruit for breakfast every morning.

This was the exact opposite.

”You know what?” Richie said. He turned away from the bookshelf to face the director. He itched his chin, the three day stubble that had covered the skin, now patched with some grey hairs. To hell with it, he thought. Yes, to hell with it — with you, with this, with the audience, the hotels, the stage, the paycheck. He pointed with his finger towards the floor. ”I quit. You can have your five percent, you can have sixty percent if you’d like. No, actually, take all of it. Do whatever you want, I don’t care!”

Richie flipped his hand in the air. The director just watched, his eyes bland as ever, his mouth in the same straight line that it always was. The only reaction was a slight raise of the eyebrows and a sigh. He clicked with the ball-point pen in his hand, put it down on the desk with a sigh.

”Richie, what exactly is going on in your head? See, I’m dying to know, because I don’t think you’ve said a single thing this past year that made any sense. I’m worried. What’s going on?” The director tilted his head to the side. He attempted to pull off the friendly _’we’ve-been-buds-for-a-long-time_ ’-smile, but it was as sterile and stiff as any other performance these days.

”No, sir. The fact that you don’t get my point is enough to prove that we shouldn’t work together anymore."

Richie didn’t want to spend another afternoon arguing back and forth, trying to explain himself. He wanted this to be the end, that was his last line. Mic dropped! He nodded curtly and turned around. Before the direction even had the chance to say anything, he had pushed the door open and walked out the office. Hearing it close behind him gave him a strange flashback that he couldn’t pinpoint where it came from, but he knew that this wasn’t the first time he shut a door behind him and left in rage.

He walked with large steps through the corridor. He greeted the people he passed but didn’t stop to explain it to them that this was the last time they’d see him. Never had Richie encountered a higher concentration of shallow people before entering the entertainment industry that was supposed to be so fulfilling and creative. He had grabbed a beer with coworkers countless of times,sometimes they chatted the evening away, had a good time, but would he miss them now that he was leaving? No. He wouldn’t miss a single one of them. The whole thing was a scam.

Possibly, if he felt like it, he could send a text to the stylist assistant who had helped him pick out suits for his shows. She was a sweet soul that he wouldn’t mind saying goodbye to on a good term. She was the only one who was attentive when he wasn’t doing well, when he didn’t want to go on stage, which was bizarre because she had only been an intern for a couple of weeks while the rets of the crew had known him for ages. Perhaps they did notice? They just didn’t care.

The fresh air outside felt like freedom in the lungs. It was already easier to breath. He didn’t know where to go, but he wanted it to be far away from the TV central’s offices. He ran down the street, almost tripped over a homeless man sitting on the ground. He threw a quick apology over his shoulder but didn’t stop. If anything, he wanted to laugh — not because of the stumble, but because of some force that emerged from within, something he hadn’t felt in a long time but that felt familiar like an old friend.

It wasn’t until he reached Central Park that he realized what it was. Optimism. Hope. Energy. A new chapter, a fresh beginning, and he saw the signs everywhere. Youngsters loitered around on the grass with their stupid music blasting, people walking side by side along the asphalted paths, talking, laughing, children with their parents. It was late afternoon like any other, but now Richie smiled like this was what he had been searching for for ages.

He sat down at the first bench he saw, on which an old lady already sat with a walker parked to her left. A tiny handbag sat on top of it and a plastic bag from a grocery store. She wore purple hat that shielded her wrinkled face from the sun, tuffs of white hair stuck out under the brim. She kept her hands on her lap and scuffed a little to the side to make space for Richie.

”Hi,” he said.

He was still out of breath after the rush. His face was flushed and his shirt was stuck to his skin by the budding drops of sweat on his back and under his arms. He must have looked crazy, but old ladies had never been his target group so it was safe to assume that she had no idea who he was. She nodded politely and said nothing more. He couldn’t had been happier.

They sat in silence, side by side, for several minutes. People walk by, came and left. The adrenaline fueled frenzy that had brought him there slowly settled, but the feeling of relief remained. It was over. He wouldn’t have to think about how to handle the situation, how to explain himself to the director, the writers, the fans, anyone at all. It was over for real this time. None of it mattered anymore.

”It’s been a lovely day, don’t you think?” the old lady said at last. She took in the view with a tender smile on her lips. Something gave Richie the impression that she had been seated there the whole day, possibly waiting for someone to join her.

”Sure has,” he said, before correcting it, ”Well, at least this past half an hour or so has been fantastic. Brilliant. Before that though, I guess it could have been better.”

”Is that so?” the lady giggled. The sweet laughter turned into hoarse coughs. She covered her mouth and excused herself. The raspy sound that came out of her throat really sounded alarming. Her tiny body wrenched like it was cramping as the coughs came out of her.

”Are you okay?” Richie asked, suddenly wary. He put a hand on her shoulder and for a split second he contemplated what to do if she died now. He glanced around them, searching for someone who gave off the impression that they knew how to save lives.

”Yes, yes, of course, don’t worry!” She wavered with her hand nonchalantly. The coughs stopped and her posture deflated in relief. She shrugged as if it was nothing, pushed the oval glasses up on her nose again. ”It’s age,” she said bitterly,” You’ll know one day. It happens to you when you least expect it. It looks a lot worse than it is but it’s a bummer when your body can’t take you everywhere you want to go.”

”I can imagine,” Richie said. He thought about it for another moment, then, without really knowing why, he crossed his arms over his chest, made himself comfortable and decided to tell her, ”Actually, what made my day really great about half an hour ago was that I quit my job. Just like that. I felt like I was wasting my life doing things I didn’t want to do. Now I have no idea what to do next and what’s going to happen to me, but it feels really great. Is that weird?”

”Oh, no, it’s not, not at all!”

”Now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve experienced this —” he floundered for a second ” — thrill? excitement? in a very long time. It’s like I’ve been stuck on the same chapter for, like, _twenty_ years. Heck, I’ve even lost count of how many years have past, maybe it’s closer to thirty?”

”May I ask what you do for a living? Or did, I suppose I should say?”

”I was a comedian.”

Richie took a deep breath. _Was_. The word tasted bizarre, and unfamiliar as if it didn’t really fit in his mouth. But it was good. It was like when he smoked a cigarette for the first time and although it was gross and made him feel queasy, there was something alluring about it that made him want to smoke another one and another one again. Shit, when did he even start smoking? When did he even light that first cigarette? He couldn’t remember! He had always been a smoker, he must have been born one, simply came out of the womb with a Marlboro sticking out between his lips or something.

”I did stand-up for many years, but then I got too old and uncool so now I started doing lame movies in which I usually played the dorky dad instead. Or shitty romcoms. You may have seen some, some actually became well-known and made some money, but I’m not proud of any of them. I stopped writing my own material the moment I started getting some recognition.”

Richie had no idea why he was telling her all of this, but the lady hummed and nodded as if this truly interested her. Was she just being polite? Had she longed for a conversation like this all week? There was no way to know, but Richie didn’t really care either. He wasn’t going to sit here the whole evening anyway.

The afternoon sun shone through the treetops. When looking up, Richie could see clear blue, the tall buildings looming in the distance and an airplane sweeping across the sky. It was June already. He couldn’t remember the last time he stopped to think about the weather and the trees, or watched people without ruining the moment with his own cynical thinking, or had a conversation with a stranger, or sat on a bench for no reason.

”I remember feeling like I was stuck on the same chapter for many years too, but then I had children and ever since that moment my life went through new, exciting phases all the time as I watched them grow. I think that’s one of the main reason why people have kids, to speak the truth. We can’t stand living for ourselves for too long. As soon as there are children in your life, you start to live more for them instead. Sir, do you you have any children? A wife maybe?”

Richie immediately glanced down at the lady’s hands. Her crooked fingers were embellished with one ring on her index finger, a green emerald in a drop shape, on the other hand she had a dainty little thing, and on her ring finger there was indeed a wedding ring. It a golden band that almost appeared to have grown stuck on her hand. She held her hands out for Richie to see better.

”The green one I inherited from my grandmother. When I pass away, my granddaughter will inherit it from me. I hope she’ll pass it on to her granddaughter, if she has one,” the lady told him. When she moved her hand the stone reflected beautifully. ”This one right here, this little one, can you see it? I got it when my husband and I had been married for thirty years.”

Thirty years. Richie was genuinely impressed. He couldn’t image what it’d be like to stick around someone for that long. His relationships had a certain tendency to fail. But, to be fair, it had gotten better recently. A miracle must have happened 2016, because ever since it seemed like the unexplainable curse that had held him back from both love and children had been dissolved — but unfortunately, the brilliant success career wise had also vanished just as quickly, and although he could had settled into a relationship and gotten married, there was something that made the whole deal intimidating. Unlike before though, it was a choice he had made to not get too involved with anybody. Didn’t feel right. Complex matter. Perhaps it was the brutal reality of turning forty? He literally turned forty that year, and ever since something had truly changed.

”What is he like? You’re still married now, I hope? Or is he dead?”

”Yes, I like to think that we still are — ” the lady said, ” — but he passed away two years ago.”

Dumb question. He damned himself for even bringing it up, what was he thinking? He smiled apologetically, but the lady just nodded. Her eyes were absent for a moment, teeming with wistfulness.

”He was my best friend,” she said. She stroke the surface of the wedding ring with a fingertip and didn’t look up while she continued, ”He proposed to me 1972. He just asked me out of the blue, or at least that what it felt like at the time, but I suppose it wasn’t. We had been seeing each other for a long time. In my heart, I think I knew he was the one all along, but I didn’t think he’d actually ask me. You see, my husband was a black man.”

Their eyes met for a second. She was a graveness over her face that she didn’t have before.

”That’s cool,” Richie said. He put his arm over the back of the bench, crossed his leg over the other. His butt and back already felt a bit stiff from sitting on the hard surface for too long, but he couldn’t leave now, could he? Not when the lady was telling her life story. Bad timing.

He felt like a dad trying to be casual and chill like a youngster, a poor imitation of the actual kids who where hanging out with one another all around them. He didn’t know how to be cool anymore, but he hadn’t yet figured out how to be a sophisticated adult either. He now started to realize that the idea of fleeing to an island in the pacific was actually not just a ridiculous fantasy, but the only option that he had. If he couldn’t be in the entertainment industry, and couldn’t work in an office, just what would he do for the rest of his life?

”I shouldn’t bore you with my stories,” the lady said, abashed.

”No, no! Please, do tell me! If I seem a little distracted it’s just because —” Richie turned around, ” — It’s been a long day and I have ADHD. Nothing personal. I don’t have anything to tell you anyway, I’m not married and I don’t have any kids either. You said your husband was black…?”

She collected herself again, clasped her hands together. Her eyes had a liveliness that made her look younger and she kept watching the people who wandered around in the park instead of facing Richie. She hadn’t even started talking yet, but Richie was moved. He wondered if it was so that every old lady had an inner Rose DeWitt Bukater, and a love story to tell involving a Jack, whom she had either lost or married.

”My family couldn’t accept it,” she started, ”His family were not happy about it, I believe, but my family was the biggest problem. And everyone else. Not everyone liked to see a white girl with a black boy. We had to keep it secret or else people would say all sorts of things. It worked at first. It wasn’t difficult to hide it because I couldn’t even accept it myself. I tried to tell myself that if I only tried, I could learn to love someone else. But you can lie to your brain, but not your heart, can you? Young people these days don’t seem to believe in true love, but I did when I was a teenager. Did you?”

Richie was caught off-guard. He had been zooming out again, distracted by something but he wasn’t sure what. Incoherent images popped up in his head, scenery, but he didn’t know from where. It was as if he could actually see the place where the old lady had fallen in love with the black man while she was telling the story. Absurd. He’d listen to this, but then he had to leave. He needed a glass of wine, a shower and some sleep, that’s what he needed.

”Ehm —” He didn’t even know what to answer. Did he? He couldn’t remember. The more he searched through his memories, tried to recall, the more assured he became that there was something seriously wrong. He couldn’t remember a thing. ”Yes, of course, I was a hopeless romantic!” He laughed and hoped it’d be enough. His back had started to feel sweaty again. It really was time to go, before he’d freak out and give the poor lady a heart attack.

”I was so afraid that anybody would find out. We lived in a small-town and people were not very accepting with these sorts of things. Everyone you asked dreamt about leaving, but very few ever did. I probably wouldn’t either, if it wasn’t because he came to my house one night — ” She had moved her hands from her lap, to her chest. She sighed nostalgically, ” — and he threw a rock on my window, and when I opened, he said ’Let’s run away, miss’. And I wanted to! I did. But it was impossible. We were too young and had no money. Where would we go? But that night we promised one another that _one_ day we would leave together.”

Richie swallowed. He had stopped listening, not voluntary, but because his head was filling up with sounds and sights that he had no idea where they came from and why they were so obtrusive. He could see a small-town so vividly in his head that he became evermore convinced that the lady was psychic and possessed the ability to transfer her own memories onto him. He could even see a black boy. Sweet and caring, with a white teeth that glistered when he smiled. He could see him throwing rocks, but the look on his face wasn’t appropriate for the occasion, it wasn’t the face of someone who was asking their loved one to run away with them. He had no idea how, but something told him that he knew this boy. How else could he see him so vividly?

”It was difficult because not only did people hate us for our love, but everything that was us, once they found out. The hatred spread weeds! Suddenly I was called a wench by the other girls although I had never even touched the boy! They made up all sorts of stories, there was always a reason to call me names. Sometimes I wonder if it was simply because they were bored and didn’t have much else to do. It seemed like people were constantly looking for a reason to be mean. Horrid times!”

Richie clung onto the armrest of the bench for dear life. He was going insane, now he was sure of it. The old lady’s soft voice was miles away, foggy and unclear, but everything it told was burned into his brain was such clarity that the visions were realer that Central Park around him. Everything was far away but the small-town and the slut and the black boy with the rocks and the love that wasn’t allowed to bloom and the hatred and —

”But now that I’m old and I’ve lived through many things, I can look back at all of this and I truly wouldn’t change a thing if I had the chance to. In fact, I almost forgot all the pain the moment we left. I just never looked back. That was a wonderful thing about Michael, how he always lived in the moment. I think everything happened for a reason. We just lived one day at a time until the cancer caught up.”

She paused, turned her face towards him. Her eyes were calm and knowing, almost obtrusively so. She knew everything about him, was Richie’s immediate impression. She wasn’t cute anymore. Something was seriously wrong here.

”And you, sir, I think you should simply do what feels right in this moment and not worry so much about the future,” she said in the same sweet manner as she had said everything else, but she didn't fool Richie. This was just an act of witchcraft, she was using it against him and hypnotized him into seeing things. That was the only explanation!

”Thank you, m’am! That’s in fact exactly what I’m going to do!” He almost hurled himself off the bench. He ran a hand through his hair and smiled as good as he could. His jaws were so tense he was almost shattering teeth. He put a trembling finger in the air, ”Very good insight! I’m happy we met! I have things to take care of, so if you don’t mind, I’ll leave. Take care!”

He bowed his head politely and darted away from the lady and the bench. He didn’t even look behind him to see if she was hurt by his abrupt departure. All he wanted was get away. He needed to go back to the hotel, have not one but three glasses of wine, a shower, some sleep and make an appointment with a doctor and run away to an island. That was the one certain thing his future held in store for him and it was exactly what he needed. Great.

He rushed past pedestrians and dog-walkers and suited people talking on their phones. Budget this, costumer service that. Fuck it. The tree trunks appeared to be teetering and all the faces that he passed stood out obnoxiously as he searched for the black boy who had invaded his brain. He had to be somewhere around here and that’s why he suddenly came to think of him. Had to be.

”Careful!”

Richie had almost bumped into stroller. A young woman glared at him, one in-ear held in her hand. She put it in again, sighed, and kept walking. He kept walking straight forward. He had almost reached fifth avenue when he realized that his hotel was located in the opposite direction. He put a hand to his forehead, turned around on the spot. He stood still, just breathed. It felt as though something heavy filled up his chest, made it difficult to get the air in and out of his lungs.

He hunched down, stretched a hand out towards the ground. Some people who walked by glanced at him but nobody stopped to check on him. Everything was spinning, it was like in the movies, he felt like he was either going to faint or vomit, and yet there was only one thing on his mind that mattered — who were they, the people that he saw? Why were they reaching out for him, calling his name?

***

**June 7th 2020**

The clock on the wall said 03:06. The machine on his left beeped consistently. The line on the screen went up and down like it was supposed to. Whatever fluid there was in the plastic bag, it kept dripping. Richie closed his eyes again. The ceiling lights above the bed were obnoxiously bright and cold. The smell of disinfectants and medicine had already started to fade away. When he woke up for the first time that night, it had overwhelmed him. It was merely by the smell that he knew that he was at the hospital. His nostrils had grown used to it so it wasn’t as obtrusive as it usually when when you stepped in, but there was no other place that smelled like a hospital.

This was the very last place where he wanted to be. _Sleep it away_ , he thought, _make time pass faster, I need to get out of here._

**June 7th 2020**

”So, mister, is Richard Tozier your full name?”

”Yes.”

”And how old are you?”

”Forty-four.”

”Is there any information you would like to share with me? Anything that I should know? Any psychiatric conditions that run in the family? Recent events? Past events? Any habits? Drugs? Alcohol?”

The doctor tapped with her pencil against the notebook, eyed him over the edge of a pair of glasses. She had a perky posture, one leg crossed over the other, looked quite young for a doctor. Newly graduated, he assumed, because old doctors were never that excited to just ask essential questions, or else she knew who he was and was already envisioning herself selling information about him to the press, gossip with her friends about the time she met Richie Trashmouth Tozier.

”Sir?”

”What?”

”Is there any such information that you think I should know?” she repeated, ”You blood tests look okay, a little low on some things, but nothing alarming. I’ll prescribe you some supplements and give you a list of foods that you should eat some more of, that should do the trick. Your heart is okay, your lungs are okay… You are a little out of shape, but nothing unusual for a man your age.” She wavered the pencil in the air as she spoke. ”So, if you don’t have anything you’d like us to know that we have not already been informed about, I don’t see any reason to keep you here. I suggest you make sure to rest and prioritize your health.”

”I don’t think there’s anything like that,” he grumbled. In that moment he could truthfully not think of anything at all, his mind was just blank, but even if there was he wouldn’t have told her. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. He realized that he wasn’t wearing any glasses and apparently no contacts either. That explained why the doctor was so blurry.

”Okay then, mister Tozier.” She stood up from the chair, flattened her scrub. ”I will fill in some papers and tell a nurse to take all the gadgets off. I recommend you to buy a notebook to write your thoughts down. It may sound like a simple thing, but you’d be surprised at how efficient writing it down can be if your thoughts are overwhelming. Clears your head like a miracle. I think this is especially the case for those with a neurological condition. Truly —,” she nodded, ” — I suggest you to give it a try.”

”Sure.” Richie hated getting lectured by people who didn’t even know him. In this moment he exaggerated his groggy state of mind to convince her that it was vain to tell him things. Although he was curious to know how he ended up in the hospital and what was going on, he wasn’t tempted at all to ask the doctor any questions — nor tell her about his vision, especially not that. She’d shit her pants in excitement if she saw an opportunity to him everything she had learned about psychology, he figured that much.

”It was nice to meet you.” She stretched her hand out towards him and he shook it indifferently. She dwelled by the side of the bed for a moment, still tapping with her pencil against her documents. Her mouth was strained like she was trying to be professional and sophisticated, but her genuine personality was shining through.

”Thanks,” Richie forced out, hoping that was what she wanted to hear.

”No problem.” Her teeth were unnaturally white when she smiled. Her eye had a cunning spark in it. She glanced towards the door, then back again at him. ”I hope you find him some day," she said with finality. She left the room with the same confident steps as she had come in with, her head held high and her ponytail wagging behind her.

She was gone before Richie had managed to process what she had said. He must have been given something calming, sleeping pills or something, because his brain ingested everything with the same tardiness as thick syrup, and time seemed to pass remarkably slowly. Richie put his head back against the pillow and closed his eyes. Although he had slept well, considering the circumstances anyway, that night it felt as if he had been on a wild ride. He was drained as if he had gone through something turbulent, head aching, mouth dry, muscles limp, like a hangover from hell. He assumed that he had been speaking in his sleep, but he couldn't remember about what he had been dreaming of.

’I hope you find him’.

_Who?_


	2. Chapter 2

**June 7th 2020**

Richie put the bag with the supplements on the desk and threw his jacket onto the bed. Nothing had changed in the hotel room since he left it yesterday morning. The room service hadn’t even dropped by to make the bed. An ironed shirt hung on the closet door, ready to be worn, but Richie wouldn’t wear it — at least not to the event that he had originally planned to attend today. It was supposed be a spectacular evening, a grand venue, lots of important people, _’_ a good opportunity to make friends with fellow media workers and put your face out there’-kind of event. He couldn’t be happier knowing that he would get to spend the evening at the hotel room, probably watching something boring on the TV or just go to sleep at nine o’clock.

He pushed the window open to let some air in. Along with the breeze came the lively simmer of cars honking, people, music in the distance, all of the sounds that were New York City. Richie had grown used to it, it didn’t bother him anymore. It was nice to not inhale sand and dust for a change, to see something that wasn’t California.

There he stayed by the window, scratching his head and wondering what to do next, until the phone started vibrating in his pocket and he was snapped out of his thoughts. He pulled it out more by reflex more than free will. It was the director but Richie had decided not to speak another word to the man ever again. He declined the call and went to take a shower instead.

He dwelled in the shower for much longer than he needed to, let the steam fog the mirror above the sink, let the hot water stream. He shampooed his hair twice for no reason other than to make the minutes pass. He hoped that the phone would run out of battery, or that the world would fix magically itself so that everything would be okay by the time he stepped out of the cabin. The sound of the water and the scent of peony soap was a good distraction, but eventually he had adapted to the sensory input and little by little the past twenty-four hours started dawning on him regardless. He shut his eyes tight and scrubbed his arms so roughly that the sponge left red marks on the skin. _Go away, for fucks sake, give me a break_ , he thought bitterly.

So many things had happened that he almost forgot about the old lady at the bench. How could you forget something so important? She was the cause of all of this! Almost, anyway. It wasn’t her fault that he quit his job and wasted his life on things he didn’t even enjoy, but the hallucinations had started during their conversation and he was confident that it wasn’t a coincidence. She was the one who had started talking about a black boy throwing rocks, about living in a small-town and everything that had gotten the snowball to start rolling downhill.

When he came out of the bathroom he felt better, despite not having a plan any more now than before he stepped into the shower. The feeling of a fresh start lasted until he picked up his phone and saw that the director had called him seven times and the phone was buzzing yet again while he held it in his hand. He sighed and decided to pick up.

”Yes?” he sneered. ”I quit yesterday, I hope you remember.”

”Richie, man, I heard you got sick and was brought to the hospital! You weren’t being yourself yesterday. I could tell, I should have asked you about it, but I thought it was just some private problem that you didn’t want to talk about!” The director almost sounded caring when he said it. Richie could imagine him sitting on his office, lukewarm coffee on his desk, personal interests on his mind. Richie didn’t even bother asking how he found out about the whole deal.

”Oh, I was myself all day. I didn’t get sick until some time around five,” he said bluntly.

Silence at the other end of the line.

”So, I was totally myself when I said that I quit,” he continued. He couldn’t believe how brusque he was being, how he didn’t apologize or laugh it off. He was dead serious. Something about it made him feel powerful and it concerned him that the feeling struck him as so foreign. The director’s lack of response only encouraged him to keep going, now with a grin. ”I’d really appreciate it if you stopped calling me and deleted my number, and please tell everyone you know to do the same.”

”You’ve gone crazy,” the director said at last, like a faint breath.

”Yeah, probably.” Richie idled around the room, wearing only boxers and the towel around his shoulders. Every cell in his body said that this was the right thing, as if it truly was his destiny and he was going in the right direction for the first time in decades. He stifled a chuckle. ”I have to go now. I have nothing to do, but anything is better than this bullshit. Bye, director. Have a shitty life."

When he hung up the laughter bursted through. Drops of water fell from his hair when he laughed. His stomach started aching so he bended forward and clutched the desk for support. He felt like a cocky twelve year old, and it felt like home.

With the urgency of someone who actually had somewhere to go and a deadline in mind, he got dressed and started gathered his belongings. He opened the aluminum luggage which had waited, untouched, in the corner of the room for the past two weeks on top of the bed. He tossed clothing items and toiletries in a messy pile and pressed with his foot to make it flat. The ironed shirt he ruthlessly wrinkled on purpose, solely because he could and nobody was there to stop him. It was the most fun he had had packing his bag in a long time.

***

Forty minutes later he stood outside the hotel, with its flashy entrance behind him and a busy street ahead. As if driven by a supernatural force, he dragged his luggage towards Central Park. The haziness from the hospital stay had worn off and his mind was now clear again. He walked the same route as he had done the previous day, but this time with determination. Now he had a place to go.

He couldn’t remember which bench he sat on and the old lady wasn’t there. It was stupid of him to think that she’d still be there at the exact same spot today, but he was genuinely surprised when she wasn’t anywhere to be found in the area where they had met yesterday. The adolescents, probably different ones but seamlessly replaceable with the ones from yesterday, sprawled out on the grass, smoked their first cigarettes, laughed at jokes. That was still the same at least. Richie watched everything with the eye of someone who had never seen such a thing before, an alien who had come to planet Earth and witnessed mankind for the first time. It was so strange, all of it.

He dug out a cigarette from his pocket and lit it between his lips. When did he start smoking? The questions were coming one after the other, and he had no answers despite the questions being about himself. Who was he even? Richard Tozier, where did he come from? How did he become this man with the luggage in Central Park? He remembered being a student at UCLA, but how did he get there? He wasn’t born in California, he knew that much. His passport stated that his birthplace as Maine. He never really thought about it. Maine was his birthplace, that was all he needed to know apparently.

Something flew past him at a high speed.

It almost brushed against his hair and he stumbled backwards. It was a bird, a tiny little thing with a round body and brown feathers. He didn’t know the name of the species. He glared after the bird before starting walking along the path in the opposite direction. The luggage’s wheels ran smoothly over the asphalt and he decided to hurry, without even knowing where he was going now that he was already in Central Park.

Another bird flew past, dangerously close just like the other one. Richie dodged it, put his arms above his head. Then another one. And another one. They came right towards him like missiles, or war planes, with striking speed and determination as if they were aiming at a target. He jerked to the side and flailed with his arms.

”What the fuck?!” he spat.

Some kids laughed. A girl pulled at her father’s shirtsleeve and pointed. The father whispered something to her and dragged her away from the scene, offering Richie an excusing look over his shoulder. ’Isn’t that Richie Tozier?’ he heard someone gasp. Richie was too confounded by the birds to give a shit about the humans witnessing the attack.

Now the birds chirped cheerfully as if nothing had happened. They picked at the ground, ruffled their feathers, did whatever birds normally do — expect Richie could swear they were observing him. Their eyes were narrowed and glittering like content spies seeing a target fall into their trap. They almost appeared to be human, giving Richie the impression that they could have spoken to him in English sentences if they felt like it.

Then, and this was the strangest of all, Richie made eye-contact with one of the birds.

This was a larger one, with speckled feathers and a reddish hue on the chest. Their eyes met for no more than a split second, but in the glassy dark color of the bird’s eye he saw someone, and it wasn’t his own reflection. Even when the bird turned its head away and flew away, the sight remained clear in Richie’s mind, as if burnt into his consciousness. He had stopped right in the middle of the walking path.

It was a boy, a young man, somewhere in between maybe. Sand colored curls, a face shaped by soft lines, no square angles, no harsh contrasts. He smiled at something, but it wasn’t at the Richie who stood petrified with his luggage in Central Park. But he was smiling at Richie, no doubt about that. He felt it. He remembered it — yes, because it was indeed a memory. At some point this boy had smiled at him, way before Richie became the crazy man in Central Park.

”Stan?” Richie mumbled.

He stared after the bird but it was now far away and indistinguishable amid the others of its kind. He held the top handle of the luggage in a tight grip. His jaw hung open and he couldn’t quite believe what was happening, but then the muscles in his face did something, purely against his own will — he cracked up — and not just in a smile, no, he cracked up all the way into his soul. Every wall, every layer of protection, denial, callousness and cynical fog, just cracked up like a cleft, and at the bottom of the abyss that had opened up side of him, there he was — little Richie.

***

**October 1st 1988**

Richie pushed a branch aside, stomped past it and let it snap back into its original position like a whip. Water splashed when it did. The ground was muddy and made a moist sound with each step. Some leaves had already fallen, making it slippery in addition to gross. He could only imagine how many insect bites he’d have on his legs after this Indiana Jones-mission, but he didn’t complain.

Stanley walked a couple of feet ahead. The kippah sat securely at the back of his head, his gait was unaffected the uneven ground and the logs they had to step over. Every now and then he glanced behind him to make sure that Richie kept up with his pace. Only then did Richie see the excitement on his face, and that was enough for him to swallow the complaints he had on the tip of his tongue.

”It’ll be so worth it, Richie! I promise! Seeing them in real life is not the same as looking them up in a book. You wouldn’t be able to hear their singing and it’s more fun to see them move around in their natural habitat,” Stanley said.

”That’s great,” Richie replied, nodding slowly.

He couldn’t resist making it sound sarcastic, just a little bit, but it wasn’t enough for Stanley to pick up on it. In fact, he doubted that Stanley had even heard him say it at all because there was suddenly something that had caught his attention right ahead of them instead. He had already started telling Richie about how bird nests were fascinating, very intricate, constructions and that birds made their nests differently depending on their needs and size. He spoke without looking back so Richie could barely even hear what he was saying, but he hummed and said ’oh, that’s cool’ every now and then anyway.

Stanley didn’t seem to mind the weather and difficult terrain the slightest. Stanley had his best boots on his feet, the book in his pocket and binoculars hanging around his neck. He had offered Richie his map and a stupid hat to wear solely for the aesthetic. If anyone spotted them, they’d see a mini scout troop of two trudging around in the wildness as if lost, but Stanley knew exactly where to go and he had gone that same route many times before. If Richie hadn’t been forced to wipe his glasses every five minutes, perhaps he would have enjoyed the mission more.

”Here.” Stanley stopped. Richie almost bumped into him from behind. ”I always spot them here.”

They made themselves as comfortable as one could make oneself comfortable in the middle of the wilderness, while the drizzle turned into rain and the insects buzzed around their heads. Knelt down under a dense bush, they waited. The leaves offered a little bit of shelter and from this position they could see the nest in a tree which grew at the other side of a small stream. It was surely connected to the Kenduskeag somehow, but from here it was merely a thin line of water, not any deeper than a couple of inches at most. Richie had never been at this particular place before, which was rare because he had seen most of Derry already, but it only took him a couple of seconds to realize that there was absolutely nothing interesting to see or do here.

But they waited. And waited. And waited. Not even when Richie had just wiped his glasses could he see any movement up there. A homely fellow with messy feathers skipped around on the ground, but the fantastic creatures that Stanley had dragged Richie out to see were obviously not there anymore.

”They’ll come back, don’t worry, Stanley assured him. His excitement grew to be forced, his eyes more desperate. He put the binoculars to his face anew and sighed, ”I’m sure they will. They always do.”

”Okay.” Richie said it through clenched jaws.

He had started to get cold. At first he could ignore it, but it was become more obtrusive by the minute. He was inappropriately dressed as always, his bare calves were prickled and the wind found its way to his skin beneath the sweater he wore on top. The hat didn’t help much, not even to shield from the rain. It only made the water drip from the brim, into his shirt at the back of his neck. He wasn’t going to complain because Stanley had specially told him to bring warm clothes but he shrugged it off.

”Hope the birdies are okay. Would suck if they had died or something,” he said. He wasn’t even sure himself if it was meant to be a joke or not.

”I think they’re quite young, the ones who live here.”

”Well, maybe they just grabbed their favorite stick and left Derry then? If I were a bird I wouldn’t want to spend my whole life in fucking Derry, out of all places. Would you?”

”No, probably not.”

Another forty minutes passed. Richie’s sneakers were soaked at this point. He couldn’t feel his toes. What did he expect, really? It was officially fall, not summer. Even Stanley had started to look a bit cold. His fingers were red and stiff, wrapped around the binoculars so tightly that it seemed like they had frozen stuck in that position.

”Rich, I’m sorry about this,” he said at last. He stood up and shook his legs, stretched them out, bent the knee a couple of times. ”Let’s go home.”

”Alright.” Not even now did Richie intend to complain. Wasn’t Stanley’s fault that the birds ditched Derry. Wasn’t Stanley’s fault that the weather was shitty either. Richie tapped him on the shoulder and smiled a little, genuinely for the first time in a while. ”Let’s just make some hot chocolate and listen to some music instead. I bought a new record. It’s really good. You’ll like it.”

Once at home, they hung their spread their wet clothes out on the bathroom floor to dry and let Maggie Tozier make them something to eat. Stanley borrowed some of Richie’s least obnoxious clothes and he, to compensate, put on the brightest pieces that he owned and paired it with odd socks. Their clothes were hidden beneath layers of every blanket they could find anyway. They both looked like ET, with only their faces sticking out.

It took a while to unfreeze, but little by little Richie regained the ability to feel his toes and Stanley’s fingers became mobile. The rosy color on their cheeks lingered for longer. When Maggie told them they were crazy to go out on a day like this, they both laughed. It was sort of funny, now that it was over. Richie knew it already — this was going to become a persistent inside-joke and they’d never forget it. He couldn’t wait to tell everyone about their useless mission in the wilderness and make act out how miserable they were while waiting under that branch.

It was getting dark by the time the food was ready. Richie’s parents allowed them to eat upstairs in his room. Both seated on the floor, they gobbled stew and potatoes as though they had never been fed before. The record played in the background. If Stanley didn’t like it, he kept it secret. Perhaps he didn’t like rock as much as Richie did, but he didn’t complain. Afterwards they drank hot chocolate and it tasted better than any hot chocolate had ever tasted before. Stanley laughed at the mustache it left on Richie’s upper lip when he lowered the cup.

”I’m sorry for making you come with me,” Stanley said. He wrapped the blankets tighter around him.

The cups were empty and placed aside. It was getting late at it was time for Stanley to make up his mind if he wanted to stay the night or go home. By now the rain was pouring, so it would make sense to stay, but with Stanley you never really knew. He needed his space sometimes, that was just how he was. Richie never even questioned it anymore because he knew that Stanley already felt bad every time he had to tell Richie that he’d rather go home, and he although he didn't fully understand what 'space' meant, he had learned that it wasn't liked to not wanting to be friends anymore.

”Anything for you my lord!” Richie exclaimed in his best British accent, which truthfully wasn't very good, "It's been my greatest pleasure to accompany you this Saturday!"

Stanley rolled his eyes but smiled. He waited another second before the most natural response occurred him, which was of course to shrug his damp curls out of his face and say in a lofty voice,

”Well said, peasant."

It was quite obvious, the whole thing. They didn’t even need to say explain it, didn’t have to get serious and spell it out. Of course Richie came along, despite the weather and despite the fact that he didn’t care about birds. He didn’t even regret it, and Stanley knew that since he would do the same thing for Richie — if it was something that was truly important, that is. Stanley would have told Richie to go die in a ditch if he was asked to come along to buy ugly clothes or annoy Eddie all day. If it was something really important Stanley would usually utter a snarky comment or two, call Richie dumb for even suggesting it, but nonetheless would he come along in the end.

And in the end the activity wasn’t as critical as the fact that they did it together.


	3. Chapter 3

**June 7th 2020**

Richie was seated on the grass. He couldn’t recall ever finding the spot and deciding to sit down, but here he was, looking up at the people who walked by, soft strands of green poking up between his fingers. He could almost feel the rain, taste the chocolate on his tongue. Central Park was nebulous and surreal in comparison. The realization that he was a forty-four year old man hit him like a bat, cruel and absurd. He felt with his fingertips along his chin, stroke the stubbly skin with the back of his hand. His hands were calloused and rougher than the ones that held the cup of reeking chocolate, his legs hairy and devoid of scratches and bruises from running around and climbing trees.

He glanced to his right, glanced to his left. He had already opened his mouth to ask _’what’s going on?_ ’, but realized that there was nobody there to ask. Plenty of people, and a rat-looking dog, but Stanley wasn’t there. Where was he now? Richie couldn’t exactly remember name of the town where they grew up, only the bewildered vegetation they had trudged through and the house that was apparently his own. He remembered his room as it had been at the time. A boy’s room, a bit messy but welcoming. Always a stack of clothes draping over the chair.

Richie searched through his phone, but couldn’t find any number to a Stanley Uris. The phone felt slippery in his hand, his fingers clumsy as they scrolled. He searched through his pictures too, but found nothing. Of course he didn’t find any pictures from his childhood, kids didn’t carry around their own iPhones back, but for some reason he expected to find something, anything at all, a magical sign from the universe, just anything that confirmed that Stanley Uris was real.

But now there were no implications whatsoever that a man named Stanley Uris never existed in the first place. For a split second Richie doubted the memory altogether, perhaps it wasn’t even real after all, and yet he felt more assured than ever. He once knew a little fellow named Stanley and they were best friends. That was more certain than Central Park and everything else that Richie knew. Anything could be a fraud, an illusion — except Stanley Uris.

Richie sighed and laid down flat on the grass.

Perhaps he just accidentally deleted his number? Could it be that Richie was in an accident that caused a permanent brain injury, made him lose his memory of both the accident itself and his childhood? Richie could still see it clearly, how the two boys sat on the floor in his bedroom, how they talked and giggled at stupid things. He couldn’t possibly imagine that he’d ever let his best friend drift away from him, that they’d fall out of touch and didn’t even have each other’s phone numbers to text a _’happy birthday’_ every year, if nothing more. Richie would never ditch a friend like that willingly.

Something happened.

**June 7th 2020**

Richie had left the hotel without really having a clue of where to go next. For the first time in his life he saw all the homeless people around him as people, as someone who had something in common with himself. Right now the men and women who wandered the streets aimlessly felt intimidatingly close. It was a feeling he didn’t exactly enjoy, but it was insightful. If it wasn’t because his suitcase had costed several hundred dollars and that his clothes were quite nice, he could easily had passed for being homeless himself, at least that’s what he thought when he caught a glimpse of his own reflection in the storefronts and car windows.

He had bought a burger at McDonald’s while passing Broadway and now he leaned against a wall, eating it like a feral dog who hadn’t been fed for days. He didn’t know the name of the street, but it was a smaller one with mostly private homes in the apartments above and few stores. The noise from the bigger streets could still be heard.

The luggage waited at his side. He could almost hear it ask _’so, where are we going?'_. It mocked him and it offended him. How do you argue with a luggage? Right, you can't! Not in public anyway. In a private hotel room, it's perfectly normal to tell your luggage that it's a cunt if it refuses to close, but what do you do when it mocks your insanity?

Richie didn’t even bother opening it to dig out the supplements the doctor had prescribed him. The package was still sealed and hidden amongst his clothes. Ice wouldn't be able to close it if he did open it, and vitamins wouldn’t fix this problem anyway. If they had diagnosed him with something more severe and offered some anti-psychotics or mood stabilizers, he would have accepted the help. Now he didn’t even know what to believe or not. It just felt ridiculous that all of this was supposedly caused by stress — as if Richie hadn’t been stressed before in his life! He definitely had, and never before had he seen an old friend’s faces in a bird’s eye like that.

Of course it didn’t make sense, it was completely irrational, but at the same time a feeling lingered — a doubt, a vague idea — that Richie knew something that the rest of the world didn’t, that he had seen something or been through something that nobody else could even imagine, and even less explain. That certainly sounded like a symptom of delusion, but Richie could swear that it wasn’t. This feeling had some truth to it, although he didn’t know how.

He grabbed the suitcase and started walking, as aimlessly as before. Perhaps he was getting desperate at this point, but when he passed an office and spotted all the documents and a notebook left on a desk, he remembered what the doctor had advised him — to get a notebook. Richie never wrote in notebooks these days, he had everything that he needed in his phone or on the computer, but in lack of anything else to do it crossed his mind as a good idea.

**June 7th 2020**

The store was about to close. There were scarcely any costumers inside, only a man inspecting the calligraphy selection in deep concentration and a pink-haired employee who was tidying up for the day. She gave Richie a quick look, a flash of disapproval in her eyes.

”Don’t worry, I won’t be here for long,” he assured her as he struggled to get the luggage through the door.

She winced back a little when the wheels bumped ungracefully over the threshold. The aluminum slammed against the door with a rowdy noise when he pulled it in. It was almost too wide to even fit through the door. The employee hurried over to help but Richie only told her repeatedly that it was fine. Once it was inside and the luggage stood nice and quiet on the floor, the employee just scratched her neck and offered a stiff smile.

”Please take your take time! Let me know if there’s anything I can help you with!” she said a cheerfulness equivalent to that of a preprogrammed robot.

There were shelves covering the walls, full of smaller departments that were filled with pencils of all kinds, paint brushes, notebooks, papers, envelopes, sketchpads and tools that Richie didn’t even know what they were used for. When he stepped in through the entrance, he had almost bumped into the table with discounted items.

Easily distracted as he was, Richie couldn’t help but take a closer look at everything. He wasn’t particularly artistic, but for some reason the supplies made him eager to draw, write, put on a beret or get his shit together. The blank papers were alluring, you could fill them with anything and only your imagination was the limit. The problem was that Richie had no idea what he wanted to create, and even if he did have the inspiration for it he frankly wouldn’t be able to draw it.

Just being inside the store made him feel organized, which was really pleasant for a change. He pretended to be looking for a specific thing, something that he needed for his important work. He eyed the watercolor palettes while tapping with a finger on his chin. _’Oh, yes, that one has such nice pigment’_ , he thought and if he really tried he could almost convince himself that he knew what he was doing.

In the end, after realizing that the poor employee was watching him impatiently, ready to take his payment behind the counter, Richie just grabbed a pocket-sized notebook and a ballpoint pencil in a haste. She had ruined his vibe so he didn’t even say anything in return when she asked him to have a nice evening.

**June 7th 2020**

Since he didn’t want to feel more homeless than necessary, he decided to check in at a hotel after all. This hotel wasn’t as swanky as the other, but he didn’t care. The crammed lobby and the simplicity of the room he was given was oddly comforting. It was more like home than the perfected layout he had grown used to while working.

It was now dark outside and the curtains were pulled half-shut, allowing some life into the room. He sat at the edge of the bed with the notebook one hand and the pencil in the other. He had bought a plain blue one with an elastic band to keep it shut, A5 sized. Fit perfectly in his back pocket. He decided that he needed to carry this thing around with him at all times from now on, and he needed to write everything he could remember so that it couldn’t escape from him again.

He had so much to write, he just didn’t know where to start. Stanley Uris. The bird. The black boy with the rocks. The small town. The slut.

Daunted by the task he had given himself, he felt paralyzed by the whole thing. How could he write about it? He didn’t know anything, all of his memories were merely flashes from a time he couldn’t grasp, people he knew but simultaneously didn’t know at all.

He took a deep breath. If he could only write one sentence, that was better than nothing. He just needed to start somewhere, he could fill in the rest later. Sweat trickled down his back. He couldn’t tell if it was the heat or fear or something else.

Without even realizing, he reached out to switch the lamp on the nightstand off. The room turned dark, obscure. The red color of the carpet lost its warmth, the branches that covered the tapestry on the walls suddenly looked like thorny shadows. The sudden shift even startled himself. He had specifically noted that the tapestry made the room feel like a cozy forest just a moment ago. This was hardly even the same room.

He slumped down on the floor, gasping in surprise. Something had pushed him off the bed. No kidding. Then he felt a hard knock against his chest that forced him to lay down. He lay flat on his back with left arm and leg along the side of the bed, every muscle was alert, ready to take another hit. The notebook was still securely in his hand.

”I can’t write like this!” he hissed. He didn’t know to who that was said.

He was alone in there, he knew logically, but there was presence, more likely an invisible force than a person, and it was so real that he could feel it all around him. Was this a religious revelation? A visit from the other side? Whatever it was, it wasn’t to mess with.

Carefully, just to be sure that the entity didn’t disapprove, he rolled over on his stomach. His heart was racing at a hundred miles per hour as he positioned himself on the carpet, notebook in front of him, upper body held up by his elbows. He had to write it down, the things that came to him. Somebody — or rather, something — wanted him to. He could feel it.

His fingers were so shaky that he doubted whether he’d be able to write even a sentence, but when he opened the book the pencil almost appeared to be writing by its own free will and the hotel room suddenly felt very, very far away.

**June 26th 1992**

It was one of those hot summer nights that made the bedsheets feel sticky. The window was open to let some fresh air in, but the breeze outside wasn’t even cooling. The open window was just an open invitation for mosquitoes, but Richie still found himself feeling luckier than ever because it wasn’t his window — it was Stanley’s. And Stanley himself was tossing and turning in his own bedsheets, kicking the blanket off, then missing the blanket, then kicking it off again and muttering under his breath.

Richie hadn’t even taken his glasses off yet because he couldn’t sleep anyway. He lay still on the mattress and tried to not move his head too much, or else he’d crush the hinges. It was alright though, he felt comfortable there on the floor next to the bed. It was his spot and it was sort of his mattress too.

It became his before they even made friends with the rest of the club members and if they ever had a sleepover it was never at the Uris’ place since Stanley’s parents didn’t enjoy having a bunch of noisy teenagers staying the night— especially not if Beverly was with them. It had not yet dawned on their parents that they had raised kids who were painfully uncool and very unlikely to throw a wild party. The one time they shared a bottle of gin at the quarry they had just giggled a lot and switched clothes with one another.

Richie also suspected that their parents thought they were too old for sleepovers, and Stanley’s parents were especially conscious about correctness. They could let Stanley slip out of the house to stay the night somewhere else, because it wasn’t as conspicuous as hosting the hustle. Boys their age normally didn’t do such things. None of the other boys at school did at least, as far as Richie knew. He also suspected that Stanley secretly thought the same thing, that he was a bit ashamed of their sleepovers because it was weird, but that didn’t stop him from participating every single time and having a good time while they watched movies, ate junk food and talked all night. Complex person, Stanley, nobody really knew what was going on inside of him, not even Richie although he was the one who understood him best.

But now it was just the two of them and it was in many regards the exact _opposite_ of a fun sleepover. Richie had asked if he could stay the night because he needed to talk about some things that he’d rather not let sunlight upon, as it had a tendency to make it real. Nothing is quite real at night, right? That’s why he thought it was safer to speak in the dark.

As soon as the sun rose again in the morning everything that had happened in the dark hours was immediately forgotten. New day, new sheet. It worked like a magic charm, made everything said dissolve into thin air — until the next time the world grew dark again, because then the previous night became real one more. Or at least that’s how it usually worked, but _this_ , this thing that mustn’t be addressed, had started to bleed into both day and night and everything in between and that’s what brought Richie here.

Stanley rolled over again, this time with his back turned towards him. The clock on the nightstand said 02:44. Richie could wait a little bit more, but not too much. Stanley was probably confused since he never received a proper explanation. He understood that Richie urgently needed to stay the night and he just let him without questioning it, although he was surely curious. Now Richie didn’t even know where to start. Was it mean to wake Stanley up now? Was he even asleep?

”Stop staring at me…” Stanley grumbled.

”The fuck would I stare at you for? You’re ugly.” Richie was surprised at how easily the words slipped out of his mouth. He chuckled a little. His voice was already raspy as though he had slept. Voices always sounded different in the dark. Perhaps it was the silence that surrounded them that made them so bold, no matter how low the murmurs were.

He received no answer. It seemed like Stanley had actually drifted off into sleep for real this time. It was lonely to be the only one awake. Richie always dreaded being the last one to fall asleep at their sleepovers. He closed his eyes. _I’ll tell him some other day_ , he thought. Stanley wouldn’t ask why he wanted to come over unless Richie invited him to ask. Richie could just let the night slip away and keep going as usual.

The question was just for how long he could ran away. Eventually he’d reach an alley with a dead end, just a thick wall of bricks ahead of him and nowhere to hide. He could brush off almost anything with a laugh, drain the seriousness out of any situation, but not with this. One simple question and he’d be as vulnerable as an open wound, disarmed and unprepared. Mind blank, tongue tied. He hated it.

”Stan…?” he hissed.

”Uh-huh…”

”You awake?”

Stanley rolled over to face him, lids half open, head lifted off the pillow. Each blink was heavy and slow as if he had to force them to reopen again. The blanket draped loosely over his hip. He had one leg stuck out from beneath it. Stanley insisted to wear a full pajamas even in the heat, but at least the one he wore during the summer months had short sleeves and short legs. Once his head settled against the pillow his eyes stopped fluttering and closed.

”Stan…?” Richie repeated.

The eyes slammed open again. This time Stanley rubbed them. Clumsily, like an old man, he pushed himself up and reached for the glass of water which stood on the nightstand. He drank a couple of mouthfuls and shrugged his head. He almost knocked the alarm clock to the floor when he placed the glass back.

”What?” he said, now more alert. He kept himself in a half-sitting position. ”Everything alright?”

”I don’t know, man, I don’t know…” Richie sighed.

He remained flat on his back. The mattress was quite old and worn out, he could feel the hardness of the wooden floor through the wad. He could even swear that there was even a dip in it that had been shaped after his own body throughout the years. He stared straight up at the ceiling. There was a slight discoloration near the lamp that was slightly more transparent than the rest of the room, from where Donald Uris must have missed a spot while painting the second layer. The silhouette of a moth was sharp against the white paint. It wandered aimlessly but Richie couldn’t stop watching it, completely mesmerized.

He could feel Stanley eyeing him for clues, a bit impatiently. Richie wished he could just take a quick look at him and understand without him having to explain anything. Wasn’t it quite obvious already? If he just avoided to look at Stanley for long enough and kept quiet, wouldn’t he understand? What else could be so bad that not even _Richie Tozier_ could spit it out?

”Come on,” Stanley nudged, stretching his arm out to poke at Richie’s shoulder, ”I can’t read your thoughts. Tell me, if you want me to know, and you don’t want me to know but want me to stay awake with you, tell me that. Just say something, Rich. I’m listening for once!” He chuckled soundlessly and pulled his arm back, tucked it under the pillow.

Richie’s mouth was dry. His tongue was so stiff it couldn’t even move. When he swallowed, he didn’t actually swallow anything. His throat was just rusty and derelict like an old building that hadn't been used for decades. He couldn’t say it. The words wouldn’t form.

”Could you write it down?” Stanley suggested.

Writing it down was overkill. Richie didn’t want to leave any mark behind, any proof at all. That was the nifty things about words, they were gone as soon as they were spoken, but their message could remain, forever imprinted into someone’s mind. He knew that he couldn’t reverse it if he said it, and this wasn’t the type of thing that someone would accidentally forget. That was what was so terrifying about putting it out there.

”I’ll get it for you.” Stanley crawled out of bed and struggled his way over Richie’s mattress, without stepping on him. Richie didn’t stop him while he knelt down by the desk and took a notebook out of one of the storage departments on the side. He grabbed a pencil from a mug, clicked with it a couple of times and scribbled at a piece of paper to make sure it worked. He held them out towards Richie. ”Here.”

Richie sat up, feeling mechanic and empty. Without realizing, he had accepted the notebook and the pencil. Now he held them as though he had never held any such object ever before, unsure of what to do with them. He stared at them, and then up at Stanley, who was nodding encouragingly, and then back to the notebook and the pencil again.

Stanley made himself comfortable at the bed. He was just about to reach for the nightstand lamp when Richie regained his voice and exclaimed a horrified _’NO!_ ’. Stanley winced back and put his hands up in the air in like a criminal caught in the light.

”Alright, no lamp, fair enough…” he mumbled.

Although it was night, the summer nights had a softer type of darkness than that of a winter night. Richie could see Stanley, and he was sure that Stanley could see him as well. The colors were muted and washed out, but in the subtile sheen of the moon it was possible to perceive what the color would be in daylight. Stanley’s pajamas, for instance, reflected the sparse light very well. It was a silky material, green and white, and it resembled water when he moved.

Richie, when looking down at his hands which held the notebook and the pencil, realized that his skin appeared so pale it was almost luminous. On the contrary, the shadows were so dark they looked like spilled ink all over the room and they formed shapes at odd places. Stanley’s face appeared a lot more angular like this.

”I’m sure it won’t be easier just because you wait longer.”

Stanley sat with his legs crossed, hands resting at his lap. His tone was impatient, but Richie knew that he’d wait the whole night if he needed to. Someone who could wait several days in the bushes to spot a fucking bird for three seconds was obviously not someone who gave up easily. The fact that he voluntarily befriended Richard Tozier was an even better proof of this.

Richie sighed and opened the notebook at an empty page. The other pages were just filled with old notes from classes, ridiculously neat and organized ones. He clicked with the pencil a couple of times, saving every second he could get. His heart was pounding so violently that he was almost afraid that Stanley would be able to hear it in the silence. Was this the right way to do it? He’d only do it once, so was this the right way? To write it? Was it better to say it? This wasn’t how he had practiced it. What was he even supposed to write? One sentence? An entire essay expressing everything that was going on inside of him?

He wasn’t ready, but he also knew very well that he’d never be ready and there was no perfect way to do it, there was no perfect time to do it either. He held his breath as he scribbled some cranky letters, tiny ones, right in the middle of page.

He slammed the book shut and held it towards Stanley with a shaky hand. Stanley cracked up in a content grin and started searching through the pages to find Richie’s message. Richie was too nervous to even watch him. His eyes were locked at his hands while he fiddled with the bedsheets. In his head he counted the seconds, half expecting something to explode after each number. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen…

His paralysis was interrupted when the notebook was thrown at him. Richie flinched. If throwing the notebook at him was a trick on Stanley’s part to get Richie to face him, it was highly efficient.

”I knew that already, stupid.” Stanley rolled his eyes in the nicest way one could. ”You really think I’m that ignorant?”

Richie didn’t even know one could roll their eyes so benevolently. Now he didn’t even know what to say. As if the spectacle was over, Stanley crawled in under the blanket again. He was still facing Richie, head on his pillow near the edge of the bed. The look on his face was so calm it was almost offensive. Was he seriously just going back to sleep now? Was that all?

”It’s okay, you know?” Stanley said. ”I don’t care.”

”It’s not okay, Stan!” Richie hissed. The fact that he could make a sound surprised him.

He glanced towards the door, sort of expecting Stanley’s parents to burst in. It couldn’t go this smoothly, something disastrous was bound to happen. It was just the way things were, right? There were no happy endings for boys like Richie. It was just a matter of how and when the story would turn into a tragedy.

”Why not?”

”Because —” Richie didn’t even know how to put his envisions into words, how to phrase his fears. He took his glasses off and dried his eyes before realizing that he wasn’t even crying. He put them on again and opened his mouth to say something, but there was nothing to say. He was dumbfounded, frightened, underwhelmed by Stanley’s meager reaction and or so full of mixed emotions that he couldn’t even sort out what he was feeling and what he wanted to say.

Stanley had closed his eyes already.

In the end Richie just pulled the blanket up to his ears and rolled over, his back against Stanley like a stubborn child who didn’t want to hear their mommy’s advice because he didn’t want to get corrected — because that was exactly what was coming if he kept insisting that something was wrong with him. Richie knew that Stanley would make him feel better, that no matter what he would say it’d be smarter than Richie’s own arguments because that was Stanley Uris.

But right now he didn’t want to hear it, he just wanted to cry and be sad in peace. The tears started trickling but he didn’t move. They were soaked up by the cotton of the blanket. Richie held it tightly wrapped around him, not caring that it was too hot and sticky. He could hear Stanley sigh behind him.

”If you’re afraid that people won’t like you, that they’ll think you’re a weirdo or anything like that, I have to remind you that they already think that anyway.” He forced his eyes open and spoke scarcely louder than a whisper. ”Just so you know, or in case you forgot.”

Silence.

”I’m the crazy jewish guy who made a mess at the bar mitzvah,” he continued, ”And it’s not like Stuttering Bill has much to hold against you, and Eddie is just a hopeless case on so many levels that I don’t even know where to start… and it’s not like Bev, Ben and Mike are the types who would suddenly hate you either. I could write you a list — it’d be as long as a full novel, that I can assure you — with reasons why none of us are merited to judge you, but I think you get my point already, don’t you?”

Of course Richie got the point, but it didn’t change reality.

This wasn’t the same thing. His friends could do weird things, but Richie was just wrong all the way to the bone. His whole being was stained with immorality and fault. Having a stutter wasn’t an offense to anyone. Richie’s wrongness affected others, it targeted other people, latched on to them like a predator settling for a victim. It was different and far from _’it’s okay, you know?’_. Besides, since when did people care about whether you were ’merited’ to think a certain thing, or feel a certain thing? Those were abstract things that didn’t always make sense. Disgust can’t be calculated like math. It can’t be permitted or denied like a political proposal. You don’t always get to decide if it’s something you _want_ to feel or not. Disgust just happens, and it was bound to happen to a lot of people if they found out about Richie’s abnormal nature.

”You need some sleep, Rich.” Stanley yawned and scuffed up on the pillow. ”Don’t stay up all night thinking about it, nothing good will come out of it, alright? Good night.”

”Sure. Good night.”

Richie thought that it was the end, that the night would devour him altogether and that he’d cease to exist before dawn, but at some point he fell asleep despite all. The notebook and the pencil laid right beside him, on the same spot where they had landed when Stanley threw them at him. The notebook was open at a random page on which Stanley had written some paragraphs about the American civil war.

**June 27th 1992**

In the morning Richie woke up, rose and ate breakfast just like every other day in his life. Stanley’s face had softened again, the shadows were gone, a rosy color on his cheeks had replaced the moonlit pallor. The sun welcomed them to the new day by shining in through the curtains. Now it struck Richie as ridiculous how he just a couple of hours ago had thought he would never experience another day. When they headed out, after putting the mattress back in the cupboard, Stanley noted that it it’d be another scorching day and Richie said something about the sun being _’_ a fierce bitch’ lately.

Nothing at all seemed to have changed.

They didn’t speak of what happened, but the words had been put into the world already, and they remained unchanged. They were hidden in between the pages of the notebook, which was placed back into the desk’s storage department exactly where Stanley had found it, neat and as innocent as all the other folders and notebooks which he stored in there. It could easily had been forgotten, but the ink on the lined paper didn’t smudge, didn’t vanish, and Stanley didn’t forget what he had read when he opened the notebook that night.

_’I think like boys’._


	4. Chapter 4

**June 8th 2020**

He was still laying on the carpet next to the bed. Just a second ago there had been a mattress there, he could still feel the softness like a phantom beneath him. His mouth was dry and it felt like a heavy pressure had just been lifted off his chest.

He sat up, feeling a little dizzy, and when he ran a shivering hand through his hair he realized that he was absolutely soaked in sweat. He reached for the switch button on the lamp on the nightstand. The light was comforting. It made the hotel room feel friendly again. His mind was blank. It took several minutes before he could produce a sensible thought, and the first thing that came to mind was ’nightmare’. He had had those before, that was nothing new.

But it wasn’t a nightmare. It was a memory.

The pencil had already fallen out of his hand and the notebook, which he remembered writing in before sinking into the haze, was open at a random page and neglected on the carpet beneath the closet. He had no memory of the moment he stopped writing, nor that he threw the book there. He reached for it but stopped himself before touching the cover. There was something seriously strange about that book. There was something seriously strange about all of this.

He went to the bathroom to have a glass of water and wash his face. He had to blink to adjust his eyes to the sharp light when he switched on the lamp in the bathroom. Sample sizes of shampoo and lotion laid untouched in a porcelain bowl on the counter. There were two brown towels with the hotel’s logo engraved in the terry hanging next to the shower cabinet. When he drank he made the horrible mistake of looking up in the mirror. The sight of the adult man with thin hair and an unshaved chin startled him. Then a fury roused instead.

”Hey, whoever you are!” he said. He peered out the bathroom door. The room was as still as before. The bedsheets sleekly tucked around the mattress, the lamp on the nightstand radiating a soft glow, his luggage waiting by the foot-end of the bed. ”If there’s someone there, I’d appreciate it if you would reveal yourself and let me know why the fuck you’re messing with me like this!”

Nobody answered, but when he turned back to the mirror there was a gawky teenage boy looking back at him through thick-rimmed glasses. Was this the answer? The boy appeared to be as confused as he was, which was perhaps normal since the boy was in fact his own reflection — it was him. The younger Richie had wet hair and a towel around his neck. There was a slight sunburn on his cheekbones and nose bridge. The reflection didn’t speak, but he pointed towards the shower.

”What? A shower?” Richie asked. ”You want me to take a shower?”

The reflection nodded. He gestured with his hand like he was screwing on the lever and mouthed: c-o-l-d. Richie frowned, glanced towards the shower and then back at the reflection. He raised a skeptical eyebrow.

”You want me to take a cold shower?”

The reflection gave him a thumbs-up with an almost mockingly happy face. Richie didn’t notice that he had actually done a thumbs-up as well, and when he looked up at the mirror yet again he saw nothing but a middle aged man doing a thumbs-up to himself. Maybe the reflection was just a hallucination after all. Of course it was, what else?

Regardless, he took his clothes off and turned the shower on. He made sure that the water was cold, and he didn’t even mind stepping into the cabinet to let the refreshing cool sprinkle wash over him. The cold woke him up, not only from the nightmarish haze but from something more profound.

Oh, how alive he was that summer, when his legs grew two inches and everything changed.

**July 15th 1991**

Every time Richie threw himself from the cliff he regretted doing it. The fall to the water was long enough to actually think that, but it didn’t change much because by the time you thought it you were already in the water and for some reason it was always colder than you expected it to be — and yet, by the time Richie’s head popped above the surface he never regretted it after all.

”That was the ugliest jump I’ve ever seen!” Eddie bursted, peering down from the height. ”My _mom_ is more graceful than that!”

He looked like a blurry splash of beige and some red to Richie, whose glasses were tucked away in his backpack. If Richie hadn’t known beforehand that Eddie wore red swim trunks, he would barely had been able to tell him apart from Bill and Stanley.

”Yeah, so? If yours isn’t a solid ten now, will you bring your mom out here to show me one, then?” Richie challenged.

To this Eddie just frowned. He hesitated for so long that Beverly eventually pushed past him and jumped, hands thrown up in the air and her legs curled. She landed dangerously close to Richie’s head and the splash hit him in the face. Ben clapped his hands, standing dry next to Eddie on top of the height, and Mike cheered as he swam towards the cliff. Bill helped him by pulling his hand and joined the applaud.

Beverly made sure to splash some more water at Richie once she reached the surface. Her nose was scrunched as she squinted in the sun, laughing. He returned the favor by spitting some water at her, not in a cute way, more like a projectile vomit kind of way.

”Payback!” he cackled.

”That’s gross!” Beverly made a face and yielded away from him. Then she cracked up in a grim smile, looking over her shoulder. ”Could you imagine how much pee and nasty stuff there is in this water? You probably just swallowed some.”

Her freckles were more prominent at this time of the year and she had a conspicuous sunburn on her cheeks, nose, neck and arms. Her torso though, in the perfect shape of a T-shirt, was ridiculously pale, almost to the point where she was luminous. The skin appeared to be its own underwater light source.

”This water is much cleaner than the water in public pools!” Eddie butted in. Of course he had heard that comment, although he was at very top of the cliff while the other two were below. He put a stern finger in the air and inhaled. ”It’s all natural, alright?! No chemicals, no babies, more water for less people — this is fine! This is okay! Just rainwater, basically! Don’t let her convince you otherwise, Richie!”

”She can’t convince me anything, don’t worry!” Richie yelled back. He liked the fact that they were on the same team for once.

”I don’t think there’s a lot of people who go to swim here.” Stanley had his hands on his hips and spoke calmly. He had already jumped once and was now waiting to jump again, waiting with Ben and Eddie. His hair were almost dry already, the curls just a bit limper and darker than usual. ”I mean, there’s not a lot of trash and stuff. People tend to leave stuff behind everywhere they go, right? We would see more signs of people if they came here.”

”Exactly,” Eddie agreed, but despite his own claims, he had a furrow between his brows and he glared down at the water with suspicion.

It was more green than blue, but that had something to do with the minerals in the cliffs or something and not nuclear waste, according to Mike anyway. You couldn’t see the bottom so the water could hypothetically be full of skeletons and nobody could prove the theory wrong, but this wasn’t something that stopped them from swimming there. On the surface everything was just fine, so if you could just abstain from thinking about what was going on deep down you’d be okay.

”Eds, go now and go die!” Richie demanded.

It was tiring to kick with his legs to stay afloat. He was awfully out of shape. Beverly had already started to swim towards the cliffs, but Richie decided to wait a little longer. He knew that the cliff appeared to be a lot higher when standing at the very top in comparison to what it looked like from below. When they were in younger and first found the quarry, which must had been in middle school sometime, the cliff loomed above like a massive building, tall as a skyscraper, but since then it gave off the illusion that it had shrunk — or maybe it was just their references that had changed over time and what used to be nerve-racking didn’t come across as quite as imposing anymore.

”Go,” Ben nudged, patting Eddie at the back, ”You’ve done it a billion times before.”

Eddie took a couple of steps back only to lunge forward towards the edge and, with a shrill shriek that echoed across the quarry, he did a flip in the air. He landed in the water like a curled up ball, right on his back. The slamming sound of skin hitting water made Richie wince.

”THAT — FUCKING — HURT!” Eddie gasped, popping up over the surface. He dragged his hand over his face, wiping the water off. ”Why did I do that?!”

”THAT — WAS — FUCKING — AMAZING!” Richie exclaimed. He had hardly been able to see what Eddie did in the air, but he could perceive the rotation and his imagination filled in the rest. It was so baffling that he forgot to keep moving his legs and almost sank.”When did you learn that?!”

Eddie wouldn’t answer him. He was panting and trashing, urging for the cliffs as if he didn’t know how to swim. The whole time he rambled incoherent things to himself. His voice cracked as he said it, like every two syllables were pronounced in the old familiar voice that he had always had while the rest had a wailing uncertainty to them, like a braying donkey better known as ’teenage male voice’. He was the last one whose voice hadn’t already settled into its deeper pitch, but lately the squeakiness had only revived when he was freaking out.

”Th-That was so cool!” Bill said. He had the aura of a proud dad or older sibling when he stretched his hand towards Eddie to help him out of the water.

When Eddie stumbled up on the plateau and Bill dunked him in the back, Eddie’s face softened and he cracked up in a content grin. Last time they went to the quarry, he had refused to even touch the water because he had a mosquito bite on his ankle that he had scratched a little in his sleep and he feared that the water would infect it.

”I —” He chuckled and itched his neck. ” — I don’t know where that came from!”

”Doesn’t matter, it was spectacular!” Richie panted.

It was a huge relief to set his feet on something solid. He tried to not sound too out of breath because it was embarrassing, but everyone was too occupied reacting to Eddie’s spontaneous stunts to even notice. Bill pulled him up in a haste and the moment Richie was out of the water, he let go of his hand to keep praising Eddie in butchered sentences.

Richie brushed some wet hair out of his face and started climbing up to the picnic spot, slipping past the other two. Bill had grown a lot in the past year which, especially when standing opposite Eddie, was very palpable. He really did resemble an older brother more than a mutual, and perhaps that was the reason why Richie didn’t mind leaving the two behind to join Beverly and Mike at the picnic spott further up on the cliffs.

”Can I have some of that?” Richie pointed at what he thought was a bottle of water.

”Now?” Beverly raised her brows but she reached for the bottle anyway.

”What do you mean? Are we supposed to save it for later?”

”That’s not water,” she said.

”No?”

”It’s gin,” Mike told him. He looked up from the radio, which refused to produce any sound but static buzzing. That thing had probably gotten damaged by water since they brought it along to the quarry every time. Mike’s hair dripped water on it even now as he held it on his lap.

”Alright, but do we have any good ole H2O?” Richie asked.

He slumped down at a towel which was spread out at a spot which was quite even. Some sharper point stood out from the cliff around them, almost like in a circle, but at least the center was flat enough to sit on and he could use the higher points to rest his back against. But first he rummaged around his own bag to find his glasses, then he went searched through belongings, not even caring about which bag belonged to who until he found a bottle of actual water in Stanley's bag.

He knew that it was his because Stanley still used the same bag as when they were kids. It was now discolored and had lost its perky shape, but way more practical than the fashionable things the rest of the bunch had switched to when starting high school. Stanley had for some reason brought five bottles of water and not much else. Richie frowned but didn’t think more about it.

”So —” Richie wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ” — We’re going to get shitfaced later, is that the plan, or what?” He couldn’t deny that he was excited about it. He had suggested before, but he had played it off as a joke when the others looked at him like he was crazy. They were still in middle school at the time. Things had changed since.

”I guess we’ll see about that. I couldn’t bring more, dad would have noticed,” Beverly shrugged, ”But it’s enough so that everyone can try some.”

”I’m pretty sure it’ll be enough to get some sort of effect,” Mike said.

He put the radio away and stretched his arms above his heads. He had that striking smile on his face like he usually had, the bright, innocent kind of smile that could make grandmas melt. In this context it was out of place. It was impossible to imagine Mike Hanlon drunk.

Richie drank a mouthful of water and let the bottle rest on his lap after that. The water was lukewarm and quite gross. The sun was already blazing against his skin. The cooling effect from the swim was already waning. The trees surrounding them were still and the flies that buzzed around in the air didn’t get blown away by the usual breeze. The heat made Richie feel torpid and it was too much of a hustle to chat, move or even think. It appeared to be a shared feeling because neither Beverly or Mike initiated any conversation after that.

Beverly shifted her position to sprawl out on the towel, hands resting on her belly, eyes closed. Mike just said something about going for another swim, and so he left the picnic spot. Ben had still not jumped a single time, but he waited by the cliff’s highest point and cheered everyone else on.

Richie glanced towards Bill and Eddie, who were still standing near the water, but now Stanley had joined them. The swim had flattened his hair, but soon the curls would start reforming their spiral pattern. Eddie spoke enough for the three of them, flailing his arms around.

”L-let’s go up th-there,” Richie heard Bill say, cocking his head towards the picnic spot.

They started climbing uphill. Richie enjoyed the fact that he could see them properly again. Eddie chattered all the way up. Stanley patiently listened and tried to inflict his own knowledge, but each time Eddie shut him with his own expertise. Eddie was probably the only one who could make Stanley surrender in a discussion. He didn’t actually surrender though, he just let Eddie talk because it wasn't worth the effort trying to tell him that trying alcohol once didn’t cause immediate brain-death.

Bill had stopped listening already. He walked towards the picnic spot with large steps, his eyes locked straight ahead while Stanley and Eddie were behind him. Richie thought he looked so cool when he had that determined expression on his face, so resolute that he didn’t even glance over his shoulder when Eddie called his name — like in an action movie when someone walks towards the camera while a whole building is exploding in the background. At the same time he found it difficult to imagine what it must be like to be able to ignore Eddie when he calls for your attention. Maybe that was the most impressive part.

”Will you help me put some sunscreen on?” Beverly asked once they had all reached the spot. She had pushed herself up on the elbows. It was unclear who she was asking, but the petrified looks on the boys’ faces made it clear like everyone felt personally targeted by the question. ”I need some on my back. Trying not to burn myself more than I already have,” she continued.

If she was aware of the tension she had created, she did a good job at hiding it. She didn’t look cheeky, unlike how she had grinned when Mike said that the bottle was in fact full of gin, and yet Richie couldn’t deny that it was weird that she didn’t just ask him to do it instead of waiting for Bill, Eddie and Stanley to join them.

Bill was the quickest to reach for the sunscreen. Beverly had stood up and had turned her back towards him. She lifted her hair, which had grown to be just above her shoulders, like she was about to put it in a ponytail. Well, at least her back was still the same as it used to. The mere thought of spearing sunscreen all over her chest made Richie feel queasy — especially since she’d actually be able to look at the person while they did it.

”You only have to put it where I can’t reach,” she instructed.

The lotion smelled like coconut and strawberries or something like that, very summery, the type of sweetness that worked fine as a sunscreen but would make a perfume tacky. At first Bill spread the cream in a nonchalant manner, but when it still refused to sink into the skin properly he pressed his lips together to a thin line and his eyes flickered. The moment seemed to go on forever. Eddie hadn’t even bothered taking a seat yet, frozen at the spot with his mouth just slightly open. He didn’t produce a sound anymore.

”I think I p-p-poured a little t-too much,” Bill mumbled.

Beverly didn’t even seem to have heard him. Her head was turned towards the water. Mike and Ben were still splashing around down there. She held her hand as a shield from the sun. Richie could only see her back from this angle, but he was sure she was smiling at the two nicest ones complimenting each other up while they did ungraceful (attempts at) somersaults. If the circumstances had been different, Richie would have seized this opportunity to shout something at them to make everyone laugh, but that wasn’t the case.

”So Mike got him to jump at last,” Stanley noted, the corners of his mouth upturned. He received no reaction.

Beverly’s back was already clear but Bill kept massaging the sunscreen in. The muscles in his face had softened and his eyes swept slowly across her skin, like he was caressing it, soaking up the sight of every freckle, every mole, the tiny scar on her left shoulder. Bill paid no attention to anything else in the world in that moment, that was for sure.

Richie was downright offended by how Bill could have the nerve to push it. Wasn’t that against some unwritten rule? To to something so sultry in front of other people? To disrupt the group dynamic everyone was so committed to preserve? But then again, it was Bill Denbrough and he could do whatever he wanted because that, if anything, was an unwritten rule that everyone conformed to for years — you don’t question Big Bill. He even had the audacity to lift the bikini strap smear some sunscreen that wasn’t even there.

At this point Eddie turned his palpably red face away. It sent a clear message to the rest that it was time they did too, but a rather pleasant rush beamed through Riche’s body and he didn’t want to look away. It was the single-handedly most erotic thing he had ever seen in his fifteen year old life. Gawking at a picture in a porn magazine wasn’t the same thing. This was real flesh and skin. He could almost feel the heat on his own back while watching.

Stanley was asking for the bottle of water but Richie didn’t catch it until he was tapped at the shoulder. Stanley was rolling his eyes, but whether his expression was amused or annoyed was impossible to tell. Richie handed it over in a haste and once the bottle was no longer in his hands it struck him that the bottle had been a great comfort, a safe place to put his hands. But it didn’t turn into a problem because when he turned back to look at the scene, it was already over. The rush came to an abrupt end but it became easier to breathe.

”Thanks, Bill,” Beverly said, letting her hair fall down over her neck again.

She lay down on the towel, now on her stomach with her head tilted to the side and sighed as if going to sleep. Just like that she moved on as if nothing conspicuous had happened all, but when Bill turned around his shorts were strained, the thin fabric pointed out just enough for it to be blatant even to the innocent one. He was quick to sit down. After first rubbing a towel over his hair, he dropped it on top of his lap.

Richie didn’t even notice that he had been staring until the view was replaced by the towel’s lumpy texture. Eddie was baffled as well, but his eyes were just shut open and blinking like a flummoxed bunny without a target, fluttering from Bill to Beverly to Richie, to Stanley, at the two still in the water and then back again. His eyes met Richie’s for a second and it was tempting to burst out laughing, because in that one second they communicated exactly what was on their minds — _’Did you see that?!’_ But they didn’t laugh. In fact, that one second of eye contact felt like a wrenching pain, a sudden cramp, and it was Richie who turned away first.

Bill drummed on his legs, hummed a little song, but his ease was so perfected that it could impossibly be genuine. He surely knew he was being watched, but he said nothing. It was just like Bill. Sometimes it felt like he was playing games with all of them, simply because he knew that he could. There were occasions when Richie dreamed of messing with Bill in return, just to let him know that he wasn’t almighty, but the truth was that Richie liked how Bill could be so brazen. His confidence was so admirable that it was impossible to be mad at him for it.

In fact, nobody said anything for a long while but the silence spoke for itself. Nobody joked it off, nobody broke the tension with something lighthearted. It seemed like everyone was caught up in their own heads. Only Ben and Mike’s voices filled out the silence, but like a distant mumble in the background.

Richie couldn’t know for sure what exactly the others were thinking, but he knew it that he had reached a breaking point. Never before had he craved touch so badly. He had thought it before, played with the idea inside his head, but as he sat there on the cliff with so much skin around him, his body was on fire and he didn’t know anything else that could settle it but real touch.

It was in that moment he understood exactly what it meant to be ’ready’, as he had heard people say so many times before. He was so ready. And also so terrified. He couldn’t grasp how the hell it was possible to be both at the same time, but it definitely was.

So, if the Losers had officially reached this stage, what would come next?

Perhaps that was something Stanley had thought about before, and perhaps that was also why he watched his friends with a look on his face which made him seem a lot older than the rest, like someone who knew where they were going before they knew it themselves. His lips were pressed together, his eyes dull. His fingers were clutching the water bottle in a tight grip.

When Richie saw Stanley’s face it felt like a chilly November wind blew past.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Helluuuu.
> 
> I thought I'd add a note to thank you for reading!
> 
> I hope you like my interpretation of the characters. They may seem a bit OOC at times, but I choose to believe that there were times when Richie wasn't joking around and that he and Stanley were not sassing each other 24/7 (only like 20/7). A friendly reminder is that Richie is canonly the smartest loser, a straight A student who was interested in politics! I love to remind myself of that. I think it makes him such an interesting character and it gives him more depth than when he's portrayed like a dumbass in every aspect. I hope I did him justice.

**June 8th 2020**

Richie was shattering teeth when he stepped out of the shower. His fingers were wrinkly and the skin all soggy. He had no regrets. The scent of coconut sunscreen lingered in his nostrils, the memory of hot cliffs under his feet still so real that the hotel’s slippery clinker made him skip in surprise when he stumbled out of the shower cabin.

He realized that it was morning, but his concept of time was distorted. The difference between 1991 and 2020 was significantly smaller than the difference between 2019 and 2020, and the distance between last week and this week was about a billion years. It struck him as eerie that he was once a comedian at all, that it was a thing of the past. The thought of comedy seemed like a thing that waited ahead in the future. Just a moment ago that was the only truth.

Richie glanced up in the mirror, hands on the counter pleaded for his younger self to greet him good morning and explain what the hell was going on, but instead he found a sample of lotion with its lid popped open and the content in a big mess on the marble surface. On the mirror there was a message, palpably written with the lotion. You could almost see the traces of a finger. Naturally, it had to be Richie who had done it since he was the only one in the room, and yet that didn’t seem likely at all. There were no signs of lotion on his own hands.

Either way, it was obvious what he had to do next.

_’Leave this town, Richie.’_

***

**November 20th 1989**

It was a Wednesday and outside the public library the evening darkness had already approached. The days seemed so short at this time of the year, like a mere flash and then it was over. Sleet had covered the streets for two whole weeks but the temperature refused to drop so it didn’t turn into snow. Wet lumps fell from the skies at intervals but the pauses in between were never long enough to let Derry dry up.

The pedestrians who hurried to and fro had to watch their steps to avoid splashing. A woman in a pencil skirt and heels cussed quietly, arms wrapped around herself, as she walked as fast as her shoes would allow her from one door to another at the opposite side of the street. A longhaired dog strutted by her with its fur dragging in the mud, accompanied by a man with a rosy nose who didn’t seem quite as keen on taking a walk.

”I’m hungry. Do you want to eat something?” Stanley asked. He dwelled by the library’s exit as he put his books into his bag, that old backpack which he had always had.

”I’m always down to eat,” Richie replied without a moment of hesitation.

”I’m aware. How about Uncle Sam’s?”

They had gone to eat and hang out at Uncle Sam’s frequently since starting their last year of middle school. They never used to do that before. Perhaps it was because they were too young and didn’t fancy conversation as much as running around in the Barrens with homemade toy guns but, aside from themselves growing older, it felt like something had actually changed in Derry lately.

Richie couldn’t pinpoint what exactly, but it felt like the air was easier to breathe, like a tension had finally loosened its grip around the town. The curfew which had forced all kids to stay indoors since the fall of 1988 was just a faint blur now. Sometimes Richie questioned whether it ever even happened at all or if it was just imagined, but he never brought it up. Whatever tension had restricted the inhabitants of Derry in the past was still there, it seemed, because it was almost like an invisible force had forbid Richie — and maybe everyone else as well — to mention the curfew and the strange events that had led up to it.

Either way, it was great that they could move freely around town now. They could sit at Uncle Sam’s for hours and didn’t have to worry about their parents (with the exception of Eddie’s mom, naturally) wanting them home immediately after school.

”You think they’ll eventually give us some loyalty reduction or something?” Stanley said as he pulled at the door handle. The tiny bell above tingled but nobody turned to see who had entered. A wave of hot air hit their faces as they stepped in.

”If they don’t give me a reduced price soon I’ll go bankrupt, so it’s their loss if they don’t.”

”That’s just because you spent all your money on that stupid jacket.”

”Yeah, but still. It’s their loss if they lose me. Just imagine how boring their jobs would be if I didn’t drop by every week!”

It wasn’t a big place but the owner, the original Sam’s grandson, had stubbornly tried to fit as many tables as possible anyway. This meant that you had to wedge your way from the entrance to the counter and then excuse yourself all the way to an empty table. It also meant that the cafe appeared to be crowded even when it wasn’t. On this particular Wednesday there were only a couple of other guests, and yet it was warm inside like in a greenhouse and the whirring noise coming from the coffee machine made the cafe noisy despite not being crowded.

After ordering some coffee and muffins, they sat down at the round table near the bookshelf. It was a small table for two, but when the whole club went together after school they could easily push the larger table that stood next to it closer since the tables almost touched already anyway.

Richie dropped his bag and jacket on the floor while Stanley hung his over the back of the chair. He sat down with his back against the wall, the shelf above on his right and a perfect view of the entrance door, which was important that at least someone had, just in case Henry Bowers and his friends would suddenly burst in. Strangely though, even Bowers’ gang seemed to have calmed down a little.

”It’s a bit early for Christmas stuff,” Richie noted, nose wrinkled, ”It’s not even December yet.”

He played with the candle which was placed the table, swept his finger right through the fire a couple of times, fast enough so that he didn’t feel the heat. He couldn’t resist doing that anytime there was a candle within reach. The wax was melted into a red liquid. The candle holder was shaped like a star as similar ones were placed at the other tables and on the window sill, by which people passed outside with longing eyes, their gloomy faces momentarily lit up by the indoor lightning. Perhaps the candles were scented too, because the air was pervaded by a subtle whiff of cinnamon and vanilla.

”Do you have any Christmas plans already?” Stanley asked him. He stirred in his coffee, which he still hadn’t tasted. His muffin was still untouched as well.

”Just the usual, I suppose. You?”

”My family doesn’t celebrate Christmas.”

”Yeah, I know, but do you have any plans for Hannukha or the winter holidays? I think Eddie said his grandma would come over so hopefully his mom will be a bit easier to convince. Maybe we could get him to try ice skating this year?” Richie chuckled at the thought and brought his cup to his lips. The coffee barely tasted coffee. He always poured lots of milk and added at least three sugar cubes to it to make it less bitter, but he refused to order hot chocolate since he needed to practice coffee-drinking before starting high school.

”Do you think your parents would mind if I stayed with you for a bit?” Stanley only glanced up for a second before turning his eyes back to his cup. ”It’s fine if that’s not, well, possible or whatever. Or if you’d rather celebrate Christmas with just your family. I was just wondering.”

”Anything happened?” Richie asked. Then, although he felt like it was unnecessary to even state it out loud, he assured, ”Oh, and of course it’s fine! Don’t worry. My parents love you, they’ll shit their pants of happiness if you wanted to stay with us. They’d adopt you if they could.”

”Oh, okay, thanks.”

Richie expected him to say something more, but it seemed like Stanley wasn’t going to. He started breaking off tiny pieces of his muffin and ate slowly. Richie took large bites directly off the top and had usually finished his muffin before Stanley was even half-way done. With Stanley, he knew, it was useless to try to make him talk. He’d talk when he felt like it and no amount of persuading or nudging could get him to say more than he wanted to share.

”So, you think Beverly will pass?” Richie changed the subject.

”The history test, you mean?”

”Anything at all.”

This made them both cackle. They kept their voices low, almost like they were hiding from the other guests, like a secret club of two that wouldn’t let anybody else into their space. Now Stanley straighten his posture and looked more like himself again at once.

”With her you never know, but I think she’ll figure something out,” he said confidently.

”I think Big Bill or Haystack will figure something out and then they’ll save her ass.”

”Yeah, probably something along those lines. But she’s not stupid, you know? She just doesn’t like to study for classes. She’s sort of the opposite of you — smart in conversation, but somehow she always gets bad grades anyway.”

”Okaaay, time to chill, Satan!” Richie sang, hand held up to halt. Then he covered his mouth with the hand and jerked his shoulders upwards. ”Oh, sorry, I meant Stan. My bad. Piss off.”

”Oh, come on! You know it’s true!”

”Yeah, but still. It’s a conscious choice I’ve made. I can be smart too if I want to, you know that. It’s just so fucking boring to be serious all the time, right? What’s the fun in that?”

Richie lifted his cup to drink. The steam clouded his glasses and he leaned back to let it cool off. He stirred around in the cup with the spoon instead and watched the coffee swirl around. It was nice to just keep your fingers on the cup. The heat could be felt through the ceramic material and Richie’s hands slowly regained their normal temperature after the walk outside.

”Do you think she’s using them?” he continued. He kept looking at the content of his cup and stirred around with wispy motions. ”I mean, she must aware that they both seem pretty into her. It’s obvious that they’d do anything for her. If I were her, I’d make them iron my clothes, make me food and carry me everywhere I wanted to go, so it’s not like I’m judging her, but still…”

”I hope that she isn’t. And I honestly don’t think that she is either. If anything, I think she’s quite troubled by how much attention she’s getting from both of them. She’s not a mean person. I think she’s being nice to both of them simply because there’s no reason not to and she doesn’t want to hurt either one of them.” Stanley waited a second. With a deep exhale he added, ”I really hope that it won’t escalate and get weird. I like it the way things are now. I hope it will remain like this for a long time.”

Richie scanned his face for clues but it was hard to read what was going on inside his head. His face was as impassive and composed as ever, revealing nothing. Richie appreciated that Stanley didn’t think of him as an idiot, but he quite frequently felt like one simply because Stanley was a difficult case and strikingly intelligent, although he was modest about it. Sometimes he’d say things like that, things that made him sound nostalgic about something he was right in the middle of, as if he had lost it already, and Richie could only sit there with the nagging feeling of that he didn’t understand something.

”Well, I like things like they are now too,” he admitted with a shrug,”I’m glad we got to know the other guys. They’re pretty cool, as far as cool goes for losers, I guess. I’m almost feel like I owe Henry Bowers one for bringing us together, but only _almost_.”

”But don’t you think that high school will be different? Nobody remains the same all throughout middle school and high school. It’s inevitable, isn’t it? We’re going to change. I just wish that it wouldn’t happen so soon.”

”C’mon man, high school is still far away. Look out there!” Richie gestured towards the window, scrunched his face into a grimace. ”It’s only November! The winter always lasts like a billion fucking years in Derry so you don’t have to worry about what’s going to happen next fall _now_ , that’s stupid! It’s almost a _year_ away!”

”Yeah, but can you believe that it has already been a year since Georgie died?” Stanley said. His voice was stern, confronting even, but his eyes were pools of unease. Now he barely blinked. His grip had stiffened around the cup handle. His body was too tense to move, still as a statue, but his voice had the same intensity as an explosion, ”It feels like yesterday, doesn’t it?”

It seemed like he had wanted to bring this up for a long time, waiting for a chance to. For a second Richie wondered if this was specifically the reason why he wanted to grab something to eat in the first place, but then he remembered that Stanley might had initiated it to have an opportunity to ask him about Christmas, and also to talk about his concern regarding high school. In that moment Richie was terrified by Stanley, not understanding why the hell he thought about such weird things. Too much was going on inside of that guy. Sometimes it slipped out, but most of it probably didn’t.

Richie swallowed as the question struck him — Just how much could a person contain? Was there a limit to it? Could a person hold an entire universe of secrets inside of them?

But it was true, what Stanley said. It had been an unnaturally long year. So much had happened since fall last year, and yet it felt like the year had passed in a split second now that it was fall once more. Richie remembered how Bill’s stutter got worse and how it was almost unbearable to talk to him last winter, during the months following Georgie’s death. Georgie’s death itself was just a nebulous haze. In fact, it was strange to even think about that Georgie Denbrough had once been alive at all. Sometimes it seemed like everyone was mourning a person who had never even existed to begin with. The pain was real, but Georgie himself was like a myth.

”There’s something weird about this town,” Richie said at last, turning his head over his shoulder, scanning their surrounding. He sucked on his spoon until the sugary coffee was replaced by the the taste of metal on his tongue.

”Exactly.” Stanley still didn’t move.

The other cafe guests looked perfectly normal. Richie recognized some of them, although he didn’t know their names. They ate and drank perfectly normally and chatted about perfectly normal things. And the view of the street outside was also perfectly normal. Everything was so perfectly normal that it was almost slumberous. It wasn’t just Georgie who was a blur, it was everything. Like an artificial lull where nothing ever happened, nothing ever changed, and the reason for it was because it wasn’t quite real to begin with.

”I hate Derry. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that I met you and the rest, but I hate this place. We’d all be happier somewhere else, I know that,” Stanley sighed. He lowered his head.

”There’s not a soul who doesn’t hate Derry. I think God himself hates Derry.”

”I don’t even think that he hates Derry, he just entirely _forgot_ about its existence,” Stanley sipped some coffee, his pinky finger in the air. Richie was relived that he had started moving again, the paralyzed stillness was unsettling. ”I’m really not that religious —”

”Yeah, no shit, mister fuck-the-synagogue.”

” — but I think that this place is in the hands of something evil. It’s cursed. Doomed.”

The attempt to cheer up fell flat. Stanley wasn’t joking around.

They had complained about Derry countless of times before, but without really addressing the root of it. They complained about the people, about the boring clothing stores, the lack of leisure activities, the ugly buildings, the weather, the teachers at school and the polluted river — but why Derry was the way it was never struck them as interesting. Talking about the origin of the problems made everything more real.

”It’s probably a coincidence,” Richie said, more to himself than to Stanley, ”And there are many places that are basically hell on Earth. In comparison to the people in poor villages in Africa or the Germans who were stuck in the DDR until now, we’re damn lucky. And I’m not jealous of those who live in Iran or Iraq either.”

”Mom and dad are getting worse by the day,” Stanley said curtly. Now he stirred hastily in his coffee until the whirlpool got so intense that it almost almost spilled over the edge, eyes locked on the dark liquid. Maybe he hadn’t even listened to Richie at all.

”What?” he said.

”I doubt that it’s because of what I did at the bar-mitzvah,” Stanley continued, still not looking up, ”Dad was furious for a while afterwards, but then everything went back to normal. Something else must have happened this summer. It seems like they can’t even see me anymore. I don’t know if it’s something I did or something else. I’m like a ghost to them. They’re acting just like Bill’s parents. It’s easier to deal with them when they get mad at me, but what am I supposed to do if they refuse to even _see_ me?”

”You mean something happened between your parents that they never told you about?”

”Maybe. Or else it’s because of Derry. Nobody’s happy here. In the end, even the happiest people turn sad. Haven’t you noticed?”

”Well, I’m still doing fine,” Richie shrugged.

”Are you?”

The bluntness made Richie feel stop mid-movement, his arm stuck in the air as he reached for Stanley’s muffin. He was afflicted by an odd guilt, a lump had formed in his stomach. The way Stanley looked at him made him feel naked, stripped to the core. Stanley didn’t look away. He maintained the eye-contact in such an intense way that it almost seemed like he was intentionally trapping Richie into a corner. But when Richie took a deep breath and reminded himself that Stanley would never be that cruel, he was able to see that Stanley was actually the one who was afraid.

”Yeah. I’m fine,” Richie told him without quaking. He pinched a large piece of the lemon muffin into his mouth and shrugged nonchalantly.

”So you’re not afraid all the time? You don’t get that feeling that there’s something seriously wrong with you and everything around you and all of this is just a shitty prank? That we’re being messed with? That everything we do is just one step closer to something horrible?”

”Stanley —?” Richie struggled for words, for a way to respond to this.

Stanley was breathing heavily, his eyes bewildered like Richie had never seen them before. Not as far as he could remember, anyway. He couldn’t let Stanley down by saying nothing, but he was baffled and scared, not of Stanley himself, but _for_ him.

”You think I’m crazy, don’t you?” Stanley’s voice was merely a whisper. He made it sound like a betrayal, a fratricide. His eyes turned towards the door, then towards his jacket and the backpack with his hand ready to grab them.

”No, no, don’t!” Richie blurted. ”I don’t think you’re crazy. It’s just —” He raised his brows, fell silent as his mind was completely blank. ” — I don’t understand. Have I missed something? Just a moment ago you said that you liked how things were, that you didn’t want it change. Now you’re saying _this_.” He gestured with his hand, let it fall onto the table with a lifeless thud. ”I just don’t… Dude, did something happen that you haven’t told me about? Can you see something that I can’t?”

Stanley sighed and sat back against the chair. He put both hands flat on the table, leaning forward just slightly. His pupils quivered and his eyes held Richie in place.

”I just have this feeling, I can’t really explain it. This is like the eye of a storm! Everything is fine, but all around us bad things are happening. Or like the calm _before_ the storm, maybe that’s a better metaphor? And —” Stanley took a deep breath. His voice was getting rickety and he seemed to be choking back tears. ” — I am just so scared of what’s going to happen once it hits us. And I know it will.”

”But, what the hell is _’it’_ even?!”

”I don’t know, but It’s here in Derry already.”

”What if It’s just negative energy? Like, people here in Derry as fucking miserable, so it’s not that strange that the town has a negative aura, you know? Bad things come from bad people. It’s not like the soil and the air in Derry is the problem!”

”But what if it is?” Stanley hissed. When Richie startled back, he pleaded in a softer tone, ”You said you felt it too! You were the one who said it! Something is wrong with Derry! The town is infected! Right? That’s what you said!”

”No, I said that there’s something _weird_ about Derry, and there’s a big difference! And besides, I think it’s better to not think and talk about it all the time because there’s nothing we can do to change it anyway. It’ll just make us go nuts!”

”Richie, please —”

”Okay, okay, I’ll hear you out!” he said, ”But let’s not talk about it here, alright?” Richie nodded his head towards the other guests. They were still minding their own businesses and didn’t even look in their direction, but if someone would overhear their conversation the word would spread like a wildfire across the town that the jew and the beaver were batshit crazy.

They gathered their belongings and left the cafe. At this hour most people were heading home from work so the streets were livelier than when they went from school to the library, and then from the library to Uncle Sam’s. It was darker too, although it was not even dinner time yet. The trees in the park looked like skeleton versions of the beautiful ones that people had crooned upon just a couple of weeks ago. Now their colorful leaves laid like a thin coat beneath the trunks, partially covered in mud and sleet.

Not caring about the sleet splashing around their ankles, Richie and Stanley hurried towards a smaller street where there weren’t any other people. Their bags were heavy with books that bumped with every step. The streets were lit up by street lights, faint but enough to make the evening less murky. The crisp air was refreshing after having spent a while inside Uncle Sam’s. Their exhales didn’t come out of their mouths as smoke, but the nippiness made Richie’s cheeks and ears tingle.

Despite being nervous and uncertain, Richie’s restless legs cheered happily as he gave them something to do. He enjoyed being unrestricted by tables and chairs. The openness made him feel free. Stanley didn’t seem to enjoy it as much. He kept looking over his shoulder, breathing tersely, his posture crouched and his head kept low. He resembled a mouse who had been forced out of its den, now skipping across an open field where hawks hungrily watched his every move from the sky above.

”Here.”

Richie stopped abruptly at a spot a bit away from the nearest street light so that they were shrouded by the dark. This was a small factory building in which raw materials were turned into usable pieces before getting shipped out of Maine. There were no windows towards the alley, only a heavy iron door that someone had graffitied a dick on and that no one seemed to use. There was a container placed along the wall of the house with an old mattress and the carved legs of a table sticking out. On the ground around it there were shards of tile.

”Just tell me. Don’t leave any important details out now.” Richie leaned with his back against the container, arms crossed.

”The thing is that I don’t have any details to tell you!” Stanley wailed. His arms were flat along the sides of his body, but his face was full of expression. ”I really don’t! It’s just a feeling and I know it’s stupid, but I swear, it’s real! I know that it’d be better to just let it go and try to not think about it, but I can’t! It’s everywhere I go, it’s in the water, it’s in the air, the ground, the walls, in people! I can _feel_ it!”

Water dripped from the roof. It joined the slow stream of melted sleet and trickled down the alley. Some lumps of slush blocked the way, but sometimes the water pulled it along. The cobblestones created a narrow canal on the left side of the street, at the opposite side from the container. The water swirled into a manhole and disappeared into the underground sewer system.

”But what are we supposed to do about ’it’, then? How do we get rid of it?” Richie put his hand on Stanley’s shoulder, maybe to calm him, or else to calm himself. Stanley appeared to be so shattered, like a tormented soul which was breaking out of its body, that Richie feared he’d just explode right there in front of him. With his most comforting voice, he said, ”Because there _must_ be a way to get rid of that force, right?”

”I don’t know, Richie, I don’t know…”

Now he was sobbing. He tried to wipe the tears away but they didn’t stop. Without a word he took a step closer to Richie and let his forehead fall onto his shoulder. Richie patted him on the back, let him cry in peace, despite feeling a bit nervous about the risk that someone would see them and get the wrong idea. _That_ , more than the two being lunatics, would spread across Derry in no time. But with all the layers of clothes, school bags and scarfs, it wasn’t a very intimate hug. It was actually quite awkward, but Richie’s pulse slowed down. This was a good sign, he figured.

”It’s evil!” Stanley wept. ”It’s going to destroy everything!”

Richie honestly didn’t believe that there was a force. In that moment he couldn’t say it out loud, but the reason why he could remain calm despite everything was simply because he didn’t believe that Derry was cursed. A shitty small town, yes, but the soil wasn’t poisoned and the air wasn’t fatal to breathe. Richie didn’t doubt Stanley’s distress, it was right there in front of him, but though it wasn’t fun to see his best friend so upset, it wasn’t as bad as an evil entity infecting the whole town.

He had always known that Stanley was sad. It was almost like he was born sad. It was his natural state, the first reaction that came to mind when he wasn’t sure of what to feel, and it could afflict him at any time. He could be happy and laugh too, of course, but Richie knew that sadness was what he returned to when the fun was over, like a familiar home with its door always open — unlike himself, who could be happy, sad, angry or anything else simply depending on the circumstances. He didn’t have any feeling that felt more like home than the other. It was unfair that Stanley couldn’t get to be like Mike, who found his home in calm and happiness. If anything, it seemed like Stanley was the cursed one, not Derry.

Knowing this, it wasn’t a surprise that Stanley felt the way he did. Richie didn’t know much about depression and such things, it wasn’t something anybody had ever really told him about, but this unexplainable feeling of sadness and disaster sounded like it. And it could be cured, which was nice to know. Anything could be cured, he had learned from Eddie. With the right doctor, some medicine and rest, Stanley would be back to normal soon enough — and hopefully better than what was considered his own normal. Maybe his chronic sadness could be cured once and for all?

”You okay?” Richie asked when Stanley finally took a step back. He adjusted his glasses. ”You could come with me and stay at my place, starting today, if you’d like? You don’t have to wait until the holidays. Sounds good?”

Stanley sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. His eyes and nose were already flushed, but maybe it was because of the cold as well. He took a couple of deep breaths. Then he faced Richie and said, with pleading finality,

”Let’s just leave this town, Richie. Let’s leave _before_ anything bad happens to any of us, _before_ it’s too late.”

They didn’t leave that night. They went home to the Toziers’ and spent the night teaching themselves how to play poker, sitting on the floor in Richie’s room.

The following morning they went to school as usual. Nobody asked why they arrived together. Things went back to normal quite quickly. Stanley did laugh and have fun, just like usual. He went to school everyday and he did well in most subjects like he always had. It was only at night that he would sometimes start sweating and rambling incoherently about Derry and the approaching horrors that he sensed were bound to strike them one day.

But then, as the budding spring transformed Derry into a town full of color and the birds started singing again, the episodes of terror gradually became fewer. At least that’s what Richie thought, because Stanley seemed to be better and decided to move home again. Stanley didn’t bring it up again. Richie explained the frenzy with the term ’winter depression’. He hoped that if Stanley was still having nightmares he would let him know, but with Stanley you never knew.

The spring and summer was a blast.

They were the oldest kids at Derry Middle School, the curfew was over, Henry Bowers mostly left them alone (maybe he was less eager to attack any of the Losers now that they had formed a pact against him and were apparently quite good at throwing rocks) and they were getting excited about starting high school after the summer. Even Stanley liked the idea of getting a new set of teachers and nicer classrooms.

It didn’t even cross Richie’s mind that this spring frolic had anything to do with the memories from the summer ’89 slowly fading. Richie himself had already forgot was that was all about. It was a mystery why It didn’t let Stanley fall back into the lull that had been their reality all the way until ’88 when everything changed, the same way that the rest of the Losers did.

Or maybe it wasn’t that strange after all — If It hadn’t tormented Stanley his whole life, perhaps there would have been seven adults coming back to fight when It woke up again the summer of 2016?


	6. Chapter 6

**June 8th 2020**

Richie was hesitant to wipe the mirror glass, but he couldn’t leave it there. He took a picture with his phone and washed it off the best he could. The lotion left a greasy layer all over the glass which made it impossible to see himself clearly afterwards. What was even more obscure was how the memory he had just regained vanished out of his mind once the message was wiped away. The vision that had just a moment ago had been realer than anything else gradually dissolved into fog until he couldn’t remember anything but having sugary coffee at Uncle Sam’s and the conversation about Christmas plans and Beverly’s dreadful grades.

The rest of the morning Richie’s biggest concern was what the room service would think. Maybe the room service would wonder what had made the mirror so greasy, but he figured that they had probably found a whole lot of strange things left behind guests before so a smudged mirror couldn’t possibly be the worst.

Since he never even unpacked his luggage last night he was almost ready to leave right away. He threw on some clothes without thinking twice about it and left the room. He didn’t pack the notebook. It needed to be accessible at all times, he thought. Something told him that it was a good idea to keep it close, so he kept it in his pocket along with his cigarettes, a lighter and something to write with.

”Good morning, sir.” The room service lady passed him with a complaisant smile, the very moment the shut the door behind him. She pushed a trolly in front of her with cleaning products and fresh towels. ”I’ll get to your room in a minute.”

”Thanks,” Richie said. He tried to smile politely to give her the impression that he was normal. The muscles in his face were strained as he did it. He must have looked like a psychopath instead, especially since he was in such a rush to leave. He felt like he was running away from a crime scene, a crime he didn’t commit but was somehow embroiled in anyway. And since he didn’t have anybody else to blame, he probably was the closest to a culprit after all.

He hoped that the lotion wouldn’t suddenly reform into letters. What if the room service found something vulgar written on the mirror? It surely wouldn’t cross their minds that it was a magical force, a spirit, that had written it after Richie had left the room. His reputation was already in trouble, he didn’t need to make it worse by making a mess at the hotel.

Without a doubt, his old co-workers and manager would soon start to leak information about him to the press and publish long, shady apologies on their official Twitter-page to let the fans know why their beloved Trashmouth had disappeared. But right now his reputation wasn’t the biggest problem at hand, and although it wasn’t the slightest comforting, he assumed that the lotion sample wouldn’t speak to anybody else.

Richie hurried through the hallway, took the elevator from the seventh floor down to the lobby. When he stepped out on the street he felt an immense pressure in the air, a hot humidity which could only mean that rain would sweep in over New York soon. Dark clouds loomed in the distance, giving the Empire State Building a rather apocalyptic aura, in the most mesmerizing way. Richie stopped outside the hotel’s entrance, face turnt up towards the scrapers and the sky they scraped.

If it started to thunder he wouldn’t be able to catch a flight to go up north that same day. _That_ struck him as the worst thing that could happen right now. He stared at the menacing clouds and begged them to stay put for just another couple of hours. Once he was out of state they could come and drench New York City with their summer rain as they liked — but not yet.

He had to see Stanley, and Eddie, and Bill and of course Beverly, Mike and Ben too. He wanted to see all of them, and as soon as possible. He couldn’t wait another week. He had waited for too long already. He wanted to see if Uncle Sam’s was still there, with its same old tables and the bookshelf full of books that were only put there for the aesthetic.

”Excuse me!” Richie raised his hand in the air as a yellow cab drove past.

After three tries he managed to catch one. The driver helped him put the luggage in the trunk and took a seat by the steering wheel. Richie sat in the back for the sake of privacy. The car smelled like new leather something soapy.

”Where you wanna go, mister?” the driver asked.

”John F Kennedy, please.”

The cab started moving and Richie leaned back against the seat hesitantly, afraid to ruin it with his own scruffiness. Well, at least he had showered. He probably didn’t use the body wash or shampoo though, despite having showered for hours, but he couldn’t remember much of the shower itself.

”Going abroad?”

”Yeah. Going to spend two weeks in,” Richie glanced out the window and saw an Italian restaurant, ”Italy.”

”Italy?” The driver sounded impressed. ”For work?”

Richie closed his eyes for a second. He was not in the mood to chitchat all the way to the airport. Now he had to improvise something because he was afraid to even mention Maine or Derry or anything about his life. Having the notebook in his pocket was bad enough. When he was seated he could feel its corners poking against his skin. Anything could trigger a memory. It was like a minefield.

”Yes. Quite boring, really. I doubt I’ll have enough time to see the city. Will spend most of my time in a conference hall discussing strategy, I’m afraid.” Richie hoped that his answer was boring enough to make the driver lose his interest.

”I dreamt of being a successful business man when I was younger. I wanted to be the greatest Colombian entrepreneur, wanted to represent my people and all of that up there with the big guys, show them that we can do other things but smuggle coke, you know?”

Richie wasn’t going to ask why he became a driver.

”But then I met this girl and all she wanted was to go live in the States.” At this the driver frowned, but with a warmth that was softened the edge of it. ”She thought that everything was going to be perfect once she got here. I told her that there were other places where our chances would be better. New York is amazing but, man, it’s rough.” He filled his cheeks with air and blew it out like a puff through his mouth, shaking his head. ”But what could I say? I had to go with her. It was the only way.”

The driver drummed happily on the steering wheel as he spoke. Richie could imagine that he told every single person who took a seat in his cab that and there was something so precious about it that he didn’t even have the heart him to shut up. Besides, it was probably healthy to have some actual human interaction before throwing himself into the paranormal again.

”I hope it was worth it then,” Richie said, lamely but with a little smile.

”Oh, I think so. She used to say I had nice eyes. Everyone else said I looked like a fish!” the driver continued. He let go of the steering wheel with his right hand to point towards his eyes, looking up in the rearview for Richie to see.

When Richie lifted his eyes he winced back in surprise, his heart skipped a beat. When he looked in the mirror again, this time prepared, all the saw was the driver’s protruding eyes. They were exceptionally rounded and were widely set, but the color was a nice and deep hazel color.

”I think they look nice,” Richie admitted (what else was he supposed to say? that he agreed with the everyone else, that the driver did indeed resemble a fish?), but it wasn’t because of the driver’s eyes that he felt his chest tighten up.

”You know, I don’t think leaving my family behind was the right thing to do, but if I had let my baby go I think my whole life would have been all wrong today. I don’t regret for a second.”

The rest of the way to the airport the driver chattered avidly about this and that. He rambled about having three daughters, trying skiing for the first time last winter, the weather, the crazy rents and sports. Richie nodded and hummed at everything, but all he could think about was how Eddie Kaspbrak’s eyes had met his own in the rearview mirror the first time he looked.

”Sir,” Richie interrupted.

”Sorry?” The driver stopped talking and shrugged his head like he just woke up from a dream.

They were almost at the airport but the traffic slowed them down. Considering how loud the streets were, it was almost a miracle how Richie’s head could feel so empty, so quiet. Now he could almost hear the blood flow through his veins, the thudding heartbeats in his chest.

”Do you know a man named Edward Kaspbrak? He usually goes be Eddie.”

”Kaspbrak?” The driver hummed and scratched his chin. Richie subconsciously held his breath until the driver went on, ”Oh, I never knew him personally. He owns the limousines, right? Drives the fancy people around?”

”I’m not sure to be honest. Maybe.”

”Well, I’m pretty sure he is. His name sounds familiar to me. One of my friends, cab driver also, left me for Kaspbrak’s company. He wanted to drive celebrities and expensive cars. Ordinary cabs weren’t good enough for him, I suppose. Everyone said he was a traitor. Can’t blame him though, don’t we all want luxlux things sometimes?” the driver chuckled. He seemed delighted that Richie was finally willing to have some conversation, but he also seemed like the person who wouldn’t struggle to find new topics to fuel his monologue.

Eddie’s guilty pleasure was luxury. He rarely spoke of it, but Richie knew that Eddie hated the roughness and simplicity of Derry— the dirt on the streets, the modest clothing and lack of elevated events. Richie always noticed how Eddie let his eyes rest for a little bit longer when they passed the tailor’s store, where nice suits and handmade shoes filled the window. And at the school dance Eddie seemed to enjoy dressing up and the feeling of a champagne glass (although it was made out of plastic and filled with the local grocery store’s cheapest orange soda and some soggy strawberries) between his fingers more than the even itself.

 _Oh, Eddie Spaghetti, you got your swanky life after all_ , Richie thought.

It was easier to breathe knowing that Eddie got what he wanted after all those years trapped in the claws of his mother. It always pained the other Losers that they couldn’t do more to help him. Richie asked if he wanted to stay at his place countless of times, for one night or for forever, just to get a break from his own home like they all needed sometimes, but Eddie could never accept the offer. His mom would never let him leave like that. Eddie had to prepare an entire speech to make her agree to let him go outside, and if he intended to stay the night somewhere else he would have to ease her into the idea over the course of a month beforehand.

”So where is he now?” Richie asked, smiling wistfully.

”I haven’t heard about mr Kaspbrak in a while,” the driver said, ”Must have been a couple of years since now. I think he went to his hometown, that’s what my friend said. Quite weird to leave a successful company just like that, right? It made people talk for sure. So much gossip, but not much truth. I honestly don’t know what mr Kaspbrak is doing now. Maybe he’s still a part of the company somehow, not sure. The company has a new boss now who is a woman, that’s all I know.”

Richie had descended into a warm, cosy haze. He was too absent to answer.

”So, you know him, this Edward Kaspbrak guy?” the driver nudged, seemingly eager to continue the conversation. He glanced at Richie in the rearview every two seconds.

”Yes,” Richie sighed. Like someone had stuck a needle in him, he deflated against the leather seat. He turned his face towards the window again and said, probably too quietly for the driver to even hear him, ”Yes, I do.”

**April 28th 1992**

Richie poked with his broom against Eddie’s back. The bristles were so rough that they barely bent even when pressed against something as solid as a person. Richie laughed to himself. He knew that Eddie would eventually turn around to cuss at him, but he was trying to resist the urge. His kept his eyes locked on Ben while he explained which improvements he wanted to do this year, refusing to give Richie any attention.

”If we extend the club house just by a couple of feet in that direction —” Ben pointed towards the southern wall with a pencil, the other hand holding a sketchbook full of ideas, ” — we could fit an entire couch along that wall. Maybe even a bed, if we’d rather have that. Then we wouldn’t have to sit on the floor and that thing.” He pointed with the pencil towards the three-legged stool in the corner. It looked intact, but as soon as you sat down on it you could feel how rickety it was and it had already been repaired twice.

”Then we could have sleepovers here!” Mike said. He carried a bucket of soapy water across the floor. ”Or is it too childish to do that now?”

”We have a f-freakin’ c-cluh-uh-b house. That’s bad e-enough.”

Bill’s eyes seemed to embrace every cursory detail in the room but his lips were a straight line, stern and formal. He liked to remind everyone that they were actually too old for things in order to be able to tell himself that at least he was _aware_ , as if that would somehow make it acceptable. But if he had truly believed that they were too old for the clubhouse, he wouldn’t have showed up to help out with the cleaning to begin with, that much everyone knew.

The club house had become like a second home, an even better home than their real ones and, although they were juniors in high school already, they still visited the club house as frequently as when they were middle schoolers. They had switched out some of their old toys and comics for other things, but it was still a club house and the cool folks didn’t have clubhouses for their group of friends to hang out in. They just hung around in the park, at the arcade, or at someone’s place — and if they were _really_ cool they might try to sneak into a real club, one of those where music blasted on the weekends and drunk people sang along until dawn.

”We’re losers anyway, what’s the point of even trying to be cool?” Ben shrugged. ”I think the best thing we can do it make this place as nice as it could possibly be. I think it’s pretty cool that we built ourselves a house.”

To this everyone agreed.

By now Richie had started to get impatient. He poked at Eddie with more force, like a stab. _Stab, stab, stab_. The bristles probably itched even through the fabric and they left some dust behind on Eddie’s blue T-shirt. Now he turned around, his mouth turned in an upside-down U that made him look like a cartoon and eyes fiery with rage. He wasn’t the slightest intimating, but this he was completely unaware of.

”What’s your problem, Richie?!” he snapped. His voice cracked into a falsetto.

What followed was so rapidly said that no mortal person could possibly catch every word, but Richie understood well enough to know that it was an impressive range of insults and swearing. He laughed contently at the reaction and threw his broom to the side. It hit the ladder which they had to climb to get out of the house.

”Pick that up, you shithole! You’re not going to slack while the rest of us work!” Eddie said. He threw his towel over one shoulder and pointed at the broom. Richie whistled and pretended not to hear. That’s when Eddie picked the broom off the ground himself and threw it at him. ”Keep going, asshat! We’re not finished yet!”

”What did you do that for?!” Richie whined, rubbing the spot on his head where the broom had hit him. It didn’t actually hurt, he actually enjoyed the whole thing. He tilted his head back and fourth, mockingly and put on his most nagging voice, trying not to laugh, ”What’s the fucking point of sweeping a floor that’s made out of dirt?! The fuck do you think is going to happen?! That the dirt will go away if I just sweep it enough?! Want me to dig a hole to Australia with this fucking broomstick or what?!”

”Come help out with the spider webs instead then, since you’re so fucking brave and totally not afraid of spiders!” Eddie mocked back.

It was officially spring and the club house could finally be used again. They had brushed the fallen leaves off the hatch and opened it. Now the sun shone in through the opening in the ceiling to fill the clubhouse with light for the first time in months. (Sure, you could sit there in the winter if you wanted to, but it was cold and wet and dark and there was frankly no reason to do it unless you were hiding from Henry Bowers). This meant that dust had been collected and the harsh weather had caused some damage that needed to get fixed, like every year.

”I think that sounds like a great idea, Ben,” Beverly said at last, to the tranquil background noise of Eddie and Richie fighting over which cleaning tools were better to use for removing spider web in the ceiling. She turned her face towards the wall where Ben wanted to expand the house with a smile. She gestured with her hands to illustrate as she said, ”We could get a big box, or maybe a drawer, just something big enough to store blankets and pillows in. I could make some pillow cases and curtains. I know there’s no windows, but we could just drape some curtains anyway, just to make it feel a bit cozier.”

”Since when do you know how to sew?” Stanley blurted, looking over his shoulder.

He was trying to put the hammock back up but seemed to have gotten the cord strings and the fabric all tangled up. He was so focused on his task that he appeared to not even listen, but apparently he was closely paying attention the whole time because, just like that, he would sometimes say and startle everyone.

”I’m not very good, but I’m learning. It’s really easy to sew pillow cases though, so that much I think I can handle.” Beverly looked down at her feet and smiled. When she lifted her eyes again she seemed to be investigating their faces. Stanley just hummed and went back to hammering a nail into the pillar where the hammock was supposed to hang, once more descending into his deep concentration.

”Th-that’s cool,” Bill commented. ”Really.”

”You think so?”

Bill nodded and offered her an encouraging smile. Richie was just confused by what he heard. He didn’t know what was weirder — Beverly being all ladylike or Beverly caring about what anybody thought of her. Richie frowned as the other boys expressed approval of Beverly’s suggestion. Her shyness dissolved and she started brainstorming ideas regarding color and patters and how it was important to make the right choice because the decorations could potentially change the entire atmosphere of the club house.

”Are you going to become like the other girls now?” Richie chortled. Beverly shut up at once and stared at him almost like a deer caught in the headlights. He pushed his glasses up and giggled. ”If we installed a stove and an oven in here you could stay here all day and cook too! Then when we come here you can greet us like _’Oh, my dears, welcome home! I baked a pie for you!’_ ” Richie forced his voice as high-pitched as it would allow him to go these days and clasped his hands together. He also fluttered his eyelashes and pouted his lips.

He received a good round of laughter for that charade so for a moment he felt quite contented with himself, but then he saw Beverly’s face and his heart dropped. She couldn’t even pretend that she wasn’t hurt by that. Her lips were parted but she didn’t produce a sound, the damp towel hung limply in her hand. But then, as if her reaction had just been a prank, she cracked a grin and said,

”So? I’m the closest to a wife you’ll ever get, Trashmouth. You should appreciate me.”

Richie laughed. Loudly. Until he wheezed. His eyes flickered to and fro between his friends, and when he realized that it wasn’t convincing enough he tossed his head backwards as dramatically as he could and sighed:

”Oh, what does a maiden like thou know of love?” He clutched the fabric of his shirt right above his heart. ”Have you not heard the news?”

”What news, Richie?” Beverly rolled her eyes.

”That she said yes! And the wedding will take place this minute!” Richie threw his hands up in celebration. ”Eddie Kaspbrak said yes! I’ll get to marry the prettiest girl in the world! A true housewife who knows how to sweep a floor just properly and remove spiderweb like no other! I’m sure she’s fruitful as well! Right, Eds? Please do say you will bear my spawns!”

At first Eddie’s face was just an open mouth of horror, then his face took on the same furious expression that they were all so familiar with. He lunged forward and started hitting Richie with his duster while yelling at him to shut the fuck up.

”What is this now?! Last fortnight you told me _’yes, I do, yes I do_ ’! Have you already forgotten about the house we were meant to share, my love? You said you wanted a pavilion!”

Richie struggled to say anything since Eddie was strangling him, but he cackled regardless and the act was so efficient that Beverly and the other guys had already stopped paying attention to him. They returned to their cleaning tasks and Ben kept explaining his ideas, firmly shutting Richie and Eddie out of their consciousnesses. Stanley briefly watched them from the corners of his eyes, shook his head and muttered something to himself. Everything was just like it was supposed to be again.

Most of that bone crushing weight was lifted from Richie’s chest, yet some of it remained. It had been there for a long time already and it seemed like the sort of thing that would never fully go away, but for now he was delighted that Eddie would hit at his face with a duster and call him a ’stupid fucking cunt’. It wasn’t right to ask for anything more, and if there was one thing in the world that he could stop himself from blurting right out, it was the actual meaning behind the ’ _more_ ’.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm realizing that these chapters are actually a lot more angsty than I thought they were when I wrote them. Well, I hope that the bittersweet stuff appeals to you. Apparently it does to me, or else I wouldn't have written this story like this, I suppose??? That's weird.

**June 8th 2020**

Airports were never exciting anymore. When Richie traveled by plane for the very first time the giant terminals and the diversity of people thrilled him. Now, after having traveled more or less constantly for the past twenty years or so, he hated the busy environment, its open spaces and the speaker voice that never shut up.

He pushed past a group of German tourists who had an intense discussion over a map right in the middle of the passage. First he needed to buy the damn ticket, which he had never actually done at the airport before. Usually his manager took care of such practical things, and the tickets were usually bought in advanced. Sometimes, though not as frequently as he had dreamed of, he could get on a private plane and dodge the fuss at the airport altogether.

”I’d like to go to Derry, Maine, as soon as possible.”

Richie drummed with his fingers on the luggage handle while waiting for the woman behind the counter to look up from her computer screen. It was surreal that he was going. He hadn’t thought of Derry is such a long time. He wholly forgot it existed, and the fact that he was born there and spent his childhood there was even weirder to think. Most of those memories were still blurry, but he had slowly started to regain an idea of what Derry looked like, based of the visions he had had since that afternoon in Central Park.

”Sorry, mister?” she said. Her glasses sat low on her nose and her lips were painted bright red, just like the other employees who sat in the booths right next to her. ”Derry, Maine, you said?”

”Yep.”

She turned her face towards the computer again and started typing something. The sound of her nails hitting the keyboard made a clicking sound. Her eyes scanned swiftly and she moved the mouse to click at something. Richie hated standing still just to wait. His legs felt itchy and his impatience had a tendency to make him ruder than necessary.

”There is no airport in Derry, maybe you’re aware, but I’ve found a route here which looks pretty good. The flight departs in four hours, one transfer in Boston, you’d arrive in Augusta before noon. I believe that would be the fastest way to get there,” she said without looking away from the computer. She scrolled down and hummed. ”The airport in Dexter is geographically closer to Derry, but I still think the fastest route would be to take the flight to Augusta and then rent a car to get to your location, if you don’t have anyone to pick you up there.”

Richie left with his plane tickets and passport in one hand, the luggage in the other, and an awful nausea that made him swallow every two seconds. He was going back to Derry. How weird. He hadn’t really taken it into consideration whether some of his old friends would still be there, waiting for him. He had just bluntly assumed that they would be there but, when thinking about it logically, it seemed unlikely that all of them would stay in that shithole of a town their whole lives. It also seemed unlikely that nobody would stay though, so he hoped that at least someone would be there when he arrived.

Either way he felt an urgent need to go, if so only to sit at Uncle Sam’s for a couple of hours by himself to remember everything he had lost. Besides, where else was he supposed to go? He had no where to go, now that he had quit his job and all.

There were four hours left to departure but Richie didn’t feel like strolling around in the duty-free stores to kill the time. He went to a random cafe and bought himself a large latte and a bagel. He had left the hotel without having breakfast and if he had learned one thing by now, it was that the food served on planes was never better than the food at the terminal. When you were far above the clouds things tasted differently, and ’differently’ in this case meant that it frankly didn’t taste shit— like munching solid air.

He had just started eating when he realized that someone was staring at him. When he looked up, he saw a man with a conspicuously perfect beard just two tables away. He sipped smoothie through a straw and pretended to be occupied, but his eyes flicked towards Richie so often that he could impossibly get anything done on that computer.

When they made eye-contact the man first acted like it was merely an accident, but then he caved in, closed the lid on the computer and leaned closer to Richie’s table. He had a smug smile on his lips and Richie braced himself for the whole _’Can I have a photo with you?_ ’-charade. If he were actually proud of the stuff he was famous for and hadn’t been on the brink of a mental breakdown, he would have been happy to interact with his fans, but when all he wanted was to get away from everything the thought of having to smile and be jolly was the least tempting thing he could imagine. Good thing he was sharper than people assumed him to be.

”Trashmouth Tozier, is it?” the man asked. He said in a way that gave off the same impression as someone nudging you in the ribs while wiggling their eyebrows.

”Sorry?” Richie said, pushing his head forward.

”Aren’t you Richard Trashmouth Tozier?”

Richie put on his best ’ _I-have-no-idea-what-you’re-talking-about’_ face. The man’s amused grin faded. He appeared to age ten years in a matter of ten seconds, his mouth and cheeks drooped and his eyes dwindled to the size of beads.

”Oh, my bad… but you look just like him.”

”Who is he? Is that the comedian guy?” Richie asked. ”Because I’ve been told many times I look like some comedian. Can’t remember his name though.”

”Well, it’s probably him. You really do look _a lot_ like.” The man nodded confidently.

Richie hummed. It seemed to have worked. It felt like he had been at the airport for hours already, but it hadn’t been more than forty minutes. He leaned back against the chair and sighed. He was restless already. Probably forgot to take his meds this morning too, which didn’t make it any easier to wait around and sit still.

”Personally, I get told that I look like a middle eastern prince,” the man said, a little absentmindedly.

The man was probably somewhere around his own age, possible a couple of years older. He wore a silky button-down that gapped over his bugling stomach and an expensive watch on his left wrist. His skin was a caramel shade of brown and dark hair was slicked to the side with a heavy pomade. Richie could imagine that he had once looked like a middle eastern prince, but he had a hard time believing that anyone but his wife and mom would have told him that in the past thirty years.

”I could totally see that,” Richie said without really knowing why. He swallowed a mouthful of coffee. When he had put it down on the table he snapped with his fingers in the air, ”You look like that —” He had a clear picture in his head and he had the name at the tip of his tongue. ”You know… The Disney prince! What’s his name…? Aladdin!”

He was content that he remembered the name, but the picture in his head was no longer the Disney character. It was a movie theater. Luckily, the comparison made the man so exhilarated that he didn’t even notice how Richie was zoning out, unable to hear a single thing the man was telling him about his anti-aging routine and grooming products.

**February 14rd 1990**

Richie twisted his body in front of the mirror. From some angles he actually looked pretty cool, but without the hustle of trying he still had that awkward aura that one could spot from miles away. His teeth were too big, his knees protrudingbut his calves and thighs shapeless and straight like sticks.

When his features teamed up together they could grant that Richie would get laughed at, even when wearing his coolest clothes and his hair swiped to the side in that nonchalant manner, like a guy who plays in band. In order to not add his thick glasses to the mess, he had also purchased his first pair of contact lenses. Took him like an hour to even get them in and now he was late, but at least that was one loser-esque feature less.

He flattened his shirt, sighed and went downstairs. His parents sat on the couch, stuffing their faces full of chips and roasted peanuts while some lame comedy aired on the TV. They didn’t even look up when Richie stuck his face into the living room.

”I’ll leave now,” he said, one hand on the doorframe. ”My friends have bought some drugs from that sketchy homeless guy so we’re going to get really high now. Might commit some crime too, like rob old grannies and set the library on fire.”

He received a lame hum in response, then they laughed at something on the TV instead.

”Yeah, and these drugs are the worst you can get your hands on these days, just so you know. I might die actually, if I don’t end up in jail before I do,” he continued impatiently.

”Sounds good, sweetie, have fun!”

Richie rolled his eyes and left the house. The moment he was out of sight, just in case his parents would actually look for him and catch a glimpse of him through the window, he dug out a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. He smoked it furiously. The comedy in that movie wasn’t even good which only made him more irritated by the fact that _that_ what what they cared about more than their own son. Hopefully the invisibility wouldn’t last for very long. But still! As he blew out the first puff of smoke he realized that even he could have written better jokes than that he felt an urgent need to do it, just to prove that he could. He wanted to scribble down a manuscript this minute, one that was ten times better than the shitty movies his parents were watching every evening these days. He knew that he could do it, which only made it more tempting to turn around and spend the night writing in his room.

But that wasn’t the right thing to think about now. He had other plans for tonight.

It was Valentine’s day and, for being Derry, the streets were busy. There were more people going out to eat and the teenagers were allowed to stay out longer than on regular weekday nights. A clique of seniors that Richie recognized from school were smoking in an alley. They seemed to think it was rebellious, but when Richie had started smoking in sixth grade they had called him _’a hopeless case’_ when he passed them in the middle school hallways. This made him frown.

But then again… Richie used to think that getting nervous to see a movie at the theater with someone was ridiculous, and yet he felt more fidgety and self-conscious than he had felt in a long time now that he was actually giving it a try. If those seniors knew, maybe they’d frown at him too. They were all young and searching, but maybe for different things, currently finding themselves in different phases. But ultimately nobody remained exactly the same, anyone was capable of change — or at least Richie _hoped_ so.

Outside of the Aladdin theater there was a whole gathering of people. It was getting dark but the light strings swirled around the pillars outside the entrance and the marshalls placed on the stairs made the theater look almost magical.

Richie recognized her even from behind and he made sure to get rid of the cigarette before approaching. She had blonde hair in a perky ponytail and was shorter than most of the other girls who passed her on their way inside. She looked like a lost child in the crowd and Richie felt a twitch of guilt, seeing her wait all by herself while everyone else seemed to have a group of friends or a date by their side. Then, as if she had sensed his presence, she turned around and smiled.

”Oh, hi, Richie!” she cheered. ”I was just wondering where you were!”

”Hi, Alice.” Richie gave her a quick hug, yielding his face away so that it wouldn’t touch the top of her head. Her body seemed so frail, like it would break if he squeezed to hard. Maybe that was the way it was supposed to feel to hug a girl, but Richie’s only reference was Beverly and she usually tried to kick you in the balls if tried to hold her. He let go and scratched his neck. ”I’m sorry for making you wait out here,” he said.

”Don’t worry about it, it’s not that cold,” she assured him and in that moment she stopped rubbing her hands together to dig out a chapstick from her bag. ”So, shall we go in? I thought we could buy some snacks or something to drink maybe, if you’d like?”

They joined the current of other people and went inside. She didn’t tell him to fuck off for making her wait and that made Richie more nervous. As they walked she stayed close to him, so close that their shoulders brushed against one another, and she glanced at him every two seconds. That’s when he realized that this was the real deal and he couldn’t mess this up. Fake it til you make it, or whatever they say, right? And tonight he was going to convince himself that this was a romantic date and everything was going to be okay once this was over.

Alice was a nice girl, the fact that she wanted to go to the Aladdin theater — a public place where the risk of being spotted by someone from school was incredibly high — with Richie Tozier was the ultimate proof of that. So, he swallowed and took a hold of her hand but let his eyes remain locked straight ahead.

”Let’s share a big popcorn!” she suggested while they were standing in the line to the snacks bar.

Richie agreed and payed for it with money he would rather have spent on a CD. He tried to distract himself from the negativity by looking around, letting the sight of happy couples and the Valentine’s day inspired decorations, but everywhere he turned the things that he saw only made him feel more anxious. He felt like a giraffe stuck in a herd of sheep, or maybe like an explorer who somehow ended up with a strange tribe in the mountains, and now had to adapt to their culture. The only thing that soothed Richie as these realizations struck him was that maybe the tribal folks were really nice and maybe their culture was fun, once you learned how to navigate it.

The movie was just about an hour and a half. He could do this. Whatever was yet to come once the movie was over was a problem for later. An hour and a half. That’s all that mattered now.

Richie had been at the theater many times before, but now the venue felt unfamiliar and odd. As if for the first time, he noticed the color of the seats, the popcorn on the floor and that there were a lot of people smooching in the dark. He tried to watch the film, but with a girl’s head resting on his shoulder and a crippling self-consciousness, it was impossible to follow. He just tried his best to breathe normally so that she wouldn’t notice his chest rising and falling unnaturally fast. Sometimes he held his breath instead, which probably wasn’t any better, but she didn’t seem to perceive that he was suffocating.

”That’s cute, isn’t it?” Alice whispered when the couple in the film finally kissed. She lifted her head off his shoulder to look up at him.

”Sure,” Richie replied.

He kept his eyes locked on the actors, who were just a tangly mess of limbs. Beautiful music with lots of violins and a slow piano played in the background, accompanied by the sound of their kissing. Richie failed to see the cuteness. He could only think of the fact that their lips made a sound that resembled stirring a pot of macaroni cheese. He had a tart taste on his tongue and he clutched the armrest until his muscles felt numb. He didn’t even dare to turn his face towards her because he could feel her eyes on him the whole time and it seemed more tempting to run out of the venue than to make eye-contact with her right now.

”It’s incredible how two actors can make a scene so romantic although they are not in love in real life,” Alice remarked. She put her head back on Richie’s shoulder and wrapped her arm around his.

She was pretty, she really was. Her timid personality and her interest in horses was the only reason why she wasn’t one of popular girls that everyone wanted to be friends with. She was only invited when she let people lend her money, or rather — her parents money. The whole thing was tragic, but perhaps that’s why Richie thought they’d make sense together. They would never be prom king and queen, the sort of couple that everyone envied, picture perfect and all of that, but they could be that low-key couple that people would say _’they are cute together’_ about, if they ever saw them holding hands or share a milkshake after school.

Richie reminded him of that repeatedly, of all the things they _could_ be. They were still just freshmen in high school so it wasn’t like they had to do anything advanced. She was a horse girl, for fucks sake — all they do is read horse magazines, collect stickers, make friends with teachers and listen to boybands. She wouldn’t initiate anything, so why would Richie have to? She’d probably just be impressed if he didn’t!

If he could only bear with letting her ramble about Little Billy the Cute Foal, chubby shetland ponies and whatnot, she’d think he was the best boyfriend ever! And that, Richie thought, was something he could handle. He had practiced plenty since Stanley did the same thing with birds and Mike would always tell him about the animals at the farm, and Richie didn’t even mind when they did. So if Alice could bear with him being a loser, then Richie could bear with her being a horse girl. They could be a cute couple for sure. Innocent and sweet. Perfect. Whoo.

Richie had almost gotten used to the feeling of her head against his shoulder when the movie was about to come to an end and the dread of what to do next hit him like a lightning bolt. What to people do once their romantic movie dates no longer include the movie? When the date of three — boy, girl, movie — becomes a date for two? Richie frantically thought of which conversation topics would be suitable and which ones wouldn’t. He had never really thought of such a thing before so to him since he never really cared.

The movie ended. Some people in the audience clapped (why do people do that unless the director is right there to receive it?) while the majority just got up and started chatting. Richie stretched his arms above his head. The lights in the ceiling were brazen after having spent a while in the dark and now he just wanted to get out of the theater to inhale some fresh air.

”I’m glad they ended up together,” Alice commented as she put her jacket back on. ”I don’t think that other guy was good for her. He didn’t actually love her.”

”Eh —” Richie tried to remember what the movie was even about ” — yes, I agree.”

Outside the temperature had dropped to freezing. The melted puddles that had been left behind the snow had turned into crisp ice and smoke came out with each exhale. Spring still seemed far away, but all around there were people who insisted on wearing their nicest clothes for the sake of Valentine’s day. Short dresses, thin jackets, nylon tights, sneakers. Richie was overheated and wanted to shove his whole face in the snow.

”It was nice to see you,” Alice said. She tucked a strand of hair that had fallen out of her ponytail behind her ear. She swayed back and fourth on her feet, the corners of her mouth pulled a gently upwards. She was quiet for a bit too long and kept looking at Richie as if she wanted him to say something. He had nothing to say.

”It was great,” Richie nodded. He shoved his hands into his pocket and when he felt the lighter and his last cigarette, he realized how badly he needed one. ”I —” He pulled his hands out of the pockets to push up his glasses up but then he realized, to his dismay, that they were still on the desk in his bedroom.

”It’s okay to be nervous, you know? It’s adorable when guys are nervous. It means that they care,” she giggled.

”Really?” Richie forced a laughter. He scratched his head. His fingers were shaky. ”Well, that’s —”

She leaned forward just a little. His heart felt as if caught in his throat. He met her eyes and tried to see all the good things, that she was pretty, that she was nice, that it’d feel natural eventually if he just gave it a genuine try. This was as romantic as it could get, to share a first kiss on the staircase outside the Aladdin theater on Valentine’s day, first year of high school.

It’s now or never, he thought.

But when she cupped his face with her hands and pushed herself up on her tippy-toes to reach, he couldn’t do it. His brain bellowed at him, told him to just lean the fuck forward and do it, and yet the power that sad _’no’_ was stronger. He staggered backward, hands held out in front of him in the same manner that someone would distance themselves from a threat.

”Oh, sorry, I… it’s… Look, I’m sorry, Alice. I really am. I’m an asshole. I’m sorry. So, so sorry!”

Richie put his hands together like he was begging her to understand, and he was. _Please understand that it’s not your fault. Please understand that I can’t help it._ Her mouth fell open, the inner part of her eyebrows crunched upwards. Her hand was still held out in the empty air between them, reaching for something that wasn’t there anymore.

The last thing Richie saw before turning around to leave was a deeply hurt girl who had fallen for a guy who didn’t actually love her. It was a cruel thing to do, but Richie’s heart was racing and his legs seemed to move by their own will. He ran. He yielded his way through the crowd and kept running until the cold air made his lungs burn.

He fucked up.

He knew that he’d never get another chance to get with a girl in Derry, and if it wasn’t obvious before, it certainly was now — the fact that he didn’t _want_ to. It was also impossible to ignore the realization that in the messy moment when Alice had leaned in to kiss him, a flickering image of Eddie Kaspbrak’s stupid face was what had pushed him back.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: This was the first part I wrote of this fic. Originally this was a part of a Stan-centric AU (not the one I uploaded earlier this year), but it didn't really fit in. "Kill your darlings", they say - but I couldn't throw this one away, so I decided to incorporate it in this story instead and changed the POV.
> 
> It's messy but tell me a when Richie and Stan aren't messy. Take it as a challenge.

**June 8th 2020**

Since Richie had booked the ticket only four hours before departure, he didn’t have a myriad of options. He squeezed himself past a woman and slumped down on the seat in the middle of the passage, one stranger on each side and no window to lean against. He realized that his inner complaints made him sound like a brat, but in this moment he remembered just how much it sucked to travel economy class — especially as a man above six-foot with a stiff back. He shot a bitter glance towards the seats by the emergency exits, the ones who got more space for their legs and windows.

 _Oh, well… Better get used to it._ Richie sighed and let his head slump back against the seat. He closed his eyes and hoped that he’d fall asleep sooner.

The other passengers chattered as they made themselves comfortable. There was a lot of slamming when they put their bags in the cabinets above. A baby cried a couple of rows behind himself and exhilarated kids yelled and bounced on their seats while their parents desperately tried to fasten their seatbelts. Servile crew members instructed them, smiling too happily considering the circumstances (how fun could it really be to walk up and down a claustrophobically narrow isle and tell people repeatedly to put their bags underneath the seat?). They gestured with open palms, looking like dolls who couldn’t use their joints properly, clad in uniforms that were impeccably neat. Richie admired their patience. He personally had to fight back the urge to tell the crying baby’s parents to throw the kid out the window or get off the plane.

The sound from the speakers disappeared into the simmer of other noises. It was one of the crew member’s welcoming them onboard, letting them know the time and the temperature and wishing them a pleasant joruney. The engine sounded like a furious dishwasher, but once it started the passengers calmed down. It was sort of like when the lights switch off in a movie theater. The passengers sat down and the isle was only occupied by the crew members demonstrating how to use a life vest. The plane left the terminal and started rolling.

”Ladies and gentlemen, welcome onboard. I am your pilot blah, blah, blah.”

Richie decked out before the plane had even left the ground. The sleep was heavy and devoid of dreams. The plane swept steadily through the air. The sound of the engine was consistent and slumberous.

By the time he woke up he felt much better. The passengers had settled into a tedious calm. The kids were either asleep, playing games on their iPads or looking out the tiny windows, noses pressed against the glass. The baby had stopped crying at last. Some people were eating sandwiches or a chicken-dish out cardboard boxes, served with a cookie that came in a plastic packaging. The crew slowly worked their way from the first-class passengers towards the end of the plane with a trolly, handing out drinks to those who wanted some. Richie was dying for something to drink. The air inside the plane was so dry it made his throat feel like it was full of dust.

”It’s so cool what mankind can create. Who knows what the scientist will figure out next?” someone said on the row in front of Richie. The voice soft and rounded but deeper than a girl’s. He spoke quietly, almost like a hiss, but Richie heard it perfectly.

”Maybe we’ll teleport ourselves across the country or something next time we go!” a girl answered.

”Yeah, that’s be awesome!” he exclaimed, still keeping the volume down. ”I wonder what the the first scientists were thinking though. Like, did they suddenly just wake up one day and thought _’I need to try this’_ and then it just happened to work and so they basically invented something new?”

They were likely siblings and seemed to be in their early teens. Twins maybe? Through the narrow gap between the seats Richie could see that they had the same shade of blonde hair and they passed a bag of candy back and fourth.

He tried not to eavesdrop but it was hard not to. On Richie’s left the woman was listening to music. He could faintly hear the base leaking from the headphones. On his right a suited man was reading a book about modern marketing models with his eyes just barely open, looking like he was about to fall asleep any minute. None of the passengers sitting closest to Richie made any noise so he could hear everything the twins said clearly without even trying.

A screen showed the planes route. They were almost in Boston. From there it wasn’t far to Maine. Now there wasn’t much Richie could do but wait. Although he wished that the flight would end sooner, he was also relieved that he had some more time to rest. He let his hands rest lamely on his lap. In that moment he didn’t even feel restless because of the the lack of activity.

”No, it’s more complicated than that for sure,” the blond girl said gravely, putting some candy in mouth. ”They probably need to experiment a lot in order to find what works. It’s not like they randomly know how to do it from the start. And then they learn from their mistakes and improve and screw up again and improve some more. It probably takes years to figure out how to make it work perfectly.”

  
Richie’s pulse increased. _Oh no_ , was his first thought. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. This was not what he needed right now, but the siblings kept chatting about trial and error and a bunch of things that were completely uncalled for to talk about on _this_ particular flight where Richie Tozier was trying to have _’a pleasant journey’._

He tried to drift off into sleep again, but the vision forced itself onto him. It was seriously difficult to sleep with a hundred flickering images in his head. This time however, it felt like a warm breeze swept into his soul rather than an unpleasant affliction. The ’ _oh no’_ -feeling washed away. Instead Richie laughed to himself. His attempt to choke it down failed. He gave the other passengers apologetic looks, but then the suited man next to him joined him, probably wondering what the hell was going on. The two siblings kept talking, but now it was impossible to focus on what they were saying.

”You alright?” the suited man asked, lowering the book to his lap.

”Oh, yes. Sorry.” Richie stifled another chortle. ”I just remembered a hilarious thing that I haven’t thought of in ages. Holy shit.”

**August 3rd 1993**

”You know, the only thing that truly sucks about being a loser is being a virgin at eighteen. That’s what I think at least. You didn’t ask for my opinion, but here it is anyway. You’re welcome.”

Stanley almost choked on the tea but managed to swallow it properly, getting away with only a subtile cough. Richie raised an eyebrow at him but didn’t say anything at first. Silence didn’t suit Richie but somehow it said more than words — he meant what he had just said. He didn’t laugh it off, didn’t try to explain himself. _’You heard me’_. He sat on the chair so nonchalantly that a teacher would have scolded him, sunken far down on the seat, legs far apart and arms resting on his lap. Right now Richie found it tempting to slip even further down on the chair to disappear under the table and die there.

”Sorry?” Stan said, almost spat.

His attempt to make it less awkward by aimlessly swirling the spoon around in his cup was vain. In the background the radio played on low volume. Stanley didn’t like the cheesy boyband songs that played so frequently these days, but today he didn’t even bother complaining about it and it was the only thing that prevented the kitchen from being completely quiet. Stanley waited as if trying to force Richie to just say something, just anything, but this time Richie ignored the encouragement and remained quiet. At this point Stanley looked anxious.

”So why do you always —?” he started.

”I’m just joking.” Richie chuckled vacantly and turned his face towards the window. He could feel Stanley staring at him and he simply let him instead of arguing. ”I thought that was obvious.”

What was he supposed to say anyway? He had just revealed it, there was no point to suddenly take it back now. And some part of him wanted to talk about it candidly. He couldn’t do it with anybody else and it had been bothering him for a while, maybe for years even.

”Oh,” Stanley said.

The sun was shining outside. It reflected in anything that allowed it — porcelain, glass, the copper pots that stood on top of the cabinets, the tiny mirror on the wall. The bread buns had a golden tone, and with the flowers in the vase in addition to the crisp linen cloth, the Toziers’ kitchen could have been a photo from a baking magazine; well, aside from the strained look on both of the boys faces that didn’t fit into the idyllic setting.

”I didn’t think too much about it when we were kids. I just thought that it would just sort of naturally happen once you became a teenager, but apparently that’s not the case.” Richie turned his face back to Stanley and he was now smiling, looking a lot more like himself again. ”I’m fucking disappointed! Where do I file a complaint? Why am I not getting any? Doesn’t it bother you that ugly dudes like that Fred guy get some but we don’t? He makes my teeth look like they’re straight out of a toothpaste commercial! And his eyes go like this!” Richie pointed with his fingers in opposite directions. ”He’s only getting laid because he has abs!”

”I haven’t thought about it.”

Richie sighed. It was like talking to a wall, but sometimes Richie got the impression that Stanley secretly wanted someone to entice him, dislodge him from his habit of being reserved. He was lucky to have someone as obstinate as Richie for a friend because it would take more than one lame reply to make him give up.

”We’re eighteen years old and we can’t even say that we’re high-schoolers anymore! Look, this is so embarrassing, I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but I have never even kissed anyone! A little smooch in middle school doesn’t fucking count and I only did it as a joke anyway.” Richie sagged hopelessly and threw his arms in the air.

”That time with Ben?” Stanley raised his eyebrows. ”Seriously? Was Ben your first kiss?”

”No, it fucking wasn’t, Stanley, because it doesn’t count, didn’t you hear me? It was a joke. Haystack wasn’t my first kiss.”

”So your two options here are to either acknowledge Ben as your first kiss, or else to face acknowledge that you haven’t had your first kiss yet? Is that it?”

”Yeah, what about it?” Richie reached for the bread and cut himself another slice, sawing through it like he was brutally killing the bread. He shoved it in his mouth without even spreading some butter on it.

Stanley did his best to maintain his cool, unaffected expression, but he was slowly losing that game. He clearly had to force the corners of his mouth down. The smugness was terrifying. Stanley was too amused to not elicit every drop out of this. He surely wanted to make Richie suffer for as long as possible before giving him whatever he wanted. (”You’re a bit scary sometimes, do you know that?” Ben had said once, and oh yes, Stan knew very well, no doubt about that.)

”Fucking say something, Stan! Don’t just stare at me like that!” Richie bursted after swallowing. He flailed wildly with his hands but didn’t know how to act angry when he was actually pleading.

”Well, what do you want me to say?” Stanley asked him, matter-of-factly. He reached for the bread and cut himself another slice too. While he buttered it, he said, ”I don’t have anything to say about this. You’re an unkissed virgin. So what? Good for you.”

Now Richie was the one to choke. He started coughing violently and gulped down the remaining content in his mug to wash it down. Stanley started laughing and crossed one leg over the other. _What a fucking jerk_ , Richie thought. All-knowing, scary, a real savage hidden by a mask of decorum. At this point Richie had realized that he was the only losing the game.

”What do you mean by _I’m_ an unkissed virgin?” he wheezed, shuffling himself upright on the chair. He leaned over the table, arms straight and his palms on the surface.

”Isn’t that what you just said?”

”Yeah but wait — no — hang on — Stanley?! Are you serious right now? You meant that we’re _both_ unkissed and virgins, didn’t you? I know that Bev, Bill, Ben and Eddie have all had their first kisses, but we’re all definitely virgins, right?”

”Well, I think Mike’s with you on that one.”

” _Only_ Mike and me?! No way! I don’t believe that! I know Eddie wouldn’t fuck anyone,” Richie said firmly, but the slight doubt made his voice falter. ”You remember how he cried after kissing that girl? Someone who puts his dick in girls wouldn’t cry because of a kiss! This means that I’m not the only one who’s a virgin!” he declared. It almost convinced himself, but Stanley just watched him freak out with a raised eyebrow and an amused grin.

”But what about _you_ , huh? You son of a bitch, what about _you_?” Richie pointed with Stanley and narrowed his eyes to thin shards. He had almost crawled over to Stanley’s side of the table, getting breadcrumbs stuck on his shirt.

Stanley shrugged. _No comment_. He still sat with his legs crossed, casual and unbothered.

Richie’s heart dropped and it sank all the way through the floor. A million images flashed through his head in a split second and all of them were horrifying — not because Stanley was so undesirable that it was unthinkable that he’d ever get any (though, to be frank, it was quite hard to imagine him with… well, anyone at all) — but because this meant that Richie had fallen behind the rest of the club. Lonely amongst the lonely. And maybe it was just sex and not the end of the world, but still. Richie wanted the Losers to share as much as possible, wanted them all to be able to relate to one another and always understand each other.

”How could you not tell me about this?” he squeaked. He sat back properly on the chair and kept shaking his head slowly. ”How could you not tell me, Stan? Who? Who was it? And when?”

”Richie, chill!” Stanley exclaimed, rolling his eyes, laughing. ”I’m just messing with you. I haven’t done it either.”

”Okay, good. But what about the others? Is Mike the only one who hasn’t —”

”I only know that Bev has done it. She told me. And Bill too.”

”With each other?!”

”How can you be surprised?” Stanley stirred his tea, holding the spoon tightly between his fingertips. ”I still don’t understand the deal with those two. I just hope that Ben doesn’t get hurt because of it. Aside from that, I don’t care. You shouldn’t care so much either. It’s not a big deal. It’ll happen when it happens, no need to make a big fuss about it.”

Richie relaxed back against the seat. Stanley appeared to be over this conversation. He reached for the radio on the kitchen counter and started muttering about how annoying it was that the radio channels always played the same songs on repeat instead of offering some variation. _Nice distraction_ , Richie thought. He regarded Stanley with great interest, searching for a sign, a penchant. This conversation wasn’t over yet, and now that Richie wasn’t the only one who was a virgin he no longer felt anxious about the topic.

Stanley liked to think of himself as mature beyond his age, someone who didn’t get engage in stupid teenage activities, someone who was unaffected by peer pressure and all of that — but although he’d deny if anybody asked, he was still just a boy in the process of becoming a man. Richie, if anyone, knew that. It was only revealed in short sequences, then neglected as though the conversations never happened, but it was enough to let it slip that he definitely cared a lot more than he wanted to. Richie loved it when that happened.

”Stanley!” Richie ripped a piece of bread from the loaf and threw it in Stan’s direction. It hit him on the shoulder and bounced down to the floor. Stanley gave him a questioning, almost offended look. Richie crossed his arms over his chest. ”Come on, man, why are you being so stiff? It’s just us here. What are you so afraid of, huh? Talk to me.”

”What for?”

”Because it’s fun.”

”It’s not.”

”Yes, it is.”

”It’s private. I don’t have to tell you anything. I already told you that I haven’t done it. Let’s talk about something else instead.”

Richie sighed. He rested his elbow on the table and his chin in his palm. Stubbornly like a child, he decided that he wouldn’t say a word. He’d force Stanley to say something with his own silence. If Stanley didn’t initiate more conversation, the conversation was over. C’est fini. Finito. Klaar. What are some other languages…? In Swedish the word for it is ’slut’. This entertained him until Stanley sighed and caved in,

”Alright, what do you want to hear?” He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and index.

”Anything.”

”Are you serious? You’ll have to be more specific than that.”

”I’m giving you an opportunity to decide what you want to tell me here.”

”What if I don’t want to tell you shit?”

”Then I’ll ask.” Richie shrugged. He thought and tapped with his finger on his chin. ”Do you ever feel stressed out about that nobody’s interested in you?”

”What kind of question is that?!”

”No, but I mean —” Richie started cackling. He didn’t even notice how insulting his question must have sounded. He threw his arms out and complained dramatically, ”We’re losers of Derry, which is literally an entire town full of nothing but losers! Nobody fucking wants us! That’s just a fact! We’ll be virgins forever! Doesn’t that bother you?”

”It will happen when it happens. Why stress it? I think there’s a lot of people who rush it and then they end up regretting it. What’s the point of doing it if it doesn’t feel right?” Stanley made it sound like he was talking about economic investments. He seemed to be proud of his answer, with his posture straight and his tone factly, but he refused to look Richie in the eye which made him look like a flustered teenager despite all.

”Seriously though, aren’t you curious?” Richie asked him,”You can’t deny that you are, come on.”

Stanley pushed his chair back and grabbed the teakettle. He went to the refill it and turned it back towards Richie as he turned the heater on. It started humming. Then he opened one of the kitchen cabinets in which the Toziers stored some coffee and tea in vintage jars that Richie’s mom liked to collect. All of this he did with the elegance that Richie could never even dream of achieving. It was like Stanley’s body had physically adapted to his personality; he was all slender and delicate, like the length of his arms were perfectly proportionate to his legs and torso, and his hands sculpted like a pianist’s.

”Which type to you want?” Stanley asked without turning back to Richie.

”Whichever,” he replied, drumming on the table cloth.

Stanley opened a green jar and poured some of the dried leaves into the pot. Richie found the whole effort hilarious. He waited with anticipation for Stanley to prepare their third batch of tea while listening to the music on the radio. When Stanley had served them both and sat down on the chair again, he seemed genuinely surprised by the fact that Richie was still patiently waiting for his answer.

”So?” Richie opened his palms, pushed his head slightly forward.

The reeking content was too hot to drink but Stanley pretended to sip some. Couldn’t he at least but on a believable act if he wanted to yield out of this? But although he wouldn’t win an Oscar for that performance, it was comedic gold. Richie observed and took notes, knowing already that he’d make a skit to honor his ole friend Stanley Uris. One day Stanley would surely be able to see how funny he was without even trying.

”Well, of course I’m a bit curious. Who wouldn’t be? It’s perfectly normal considering that it’s something I’ve never done before. It would actually be weirder if I wasn’t the slightest curious. That could be a sign that something is wrong.”

”Mike doesn’t seem very curious, and he seems healthy otherwise, but you don’t have to justify it, dude. It’s okay.” Richie couldn’t help but feel a bit sorry for the poor guy who couldn’t even let himself be curious without getting nagged by guilt for it. He couldn’t even imagine what it must be like to hold yourself barred all the time. He raised a hand, ”I’ll admit it that I’m really curious. And, like, I think about it a _lot_. Can’t help it, you know?”

”Okay, good for you.”

”If you’d do it with anyone, who would it be?” Richie continued, ignoring the lack of enthusiasm he was receiving in the return. ”Like, a celebrity, someone from school, pornstar…?”

”I don’t think anybody would want to do it with me. But —”

”My question was who —”

”I heard the question!” Stanley snapped. ”I was going to say that if if I did it with anyone, it’d have to be with someone I felt comfortable with. I don’t like the idea of celebrities and stuff, I don’t even know them, and I’d never do it with some random girl from school. In that case I would rather not do it at all.”

Richie hummed. He was getting restless, he wanted move around or just do something that wasn’t sitting still at the table. They had spent most of the afternoon there, stuffing their faces full and drinking unhealthy amounts of tea (that neither of them even liked that much to begin with), but now the conversation was just getting started.

”Fair enough,” he said. ”So you’d do it with Beverly?”

”Bill would kill me and Ben would never forgive me. And it’d probably be awkward afterwards. I’m not sure. She’s the only girl I’m close to, that’s all. I’m not in love with her or anything.”

”You think you could do it with a guy?” Richie threw out.

Stanley didn’t answer right away. He titled his head a little to the side and seemed to think about it, his eyes absently resting on the table cloth. Richie could only hope that the question didn’t hit a sensitive nerve. He bit down on his tongue and expected Stanley to get offended and how he had the audacity to even ask, but he just said,

”I’m not gay, but I don’t see any reason to completely neglect the idea of giving it a try.”

Again, Stanley had such a formal way of phrase it that it was hard to grasp what he was actually saying. Richie couldn’t even believe it. Baffled, he started chortling. Was it a joke? Was he getting made fun of? But Stanley just sipped his tea and didn’t flinch when Richie stared.

”What are you looking at me like that for? It’s not that hard for you to understand that, is it?” Stanley asked, putting the cup down. He raised a brow just slightly and Richie could swear that he was grinning. That smug little shit. That was a hit under the belt. He wasn’t allowed to bring that up, especially not to tease.

”I mean —” Richie started. His face heated up alarmingly. He adjusted his glasses with fidgety fingers. Stanley knew, but Richie had never told him much about anything, especially not about his wants and desires, aside from that they didn’t include girls. ”I would, maybe, if someone — well, it _depends_! I wouldn’t do it with anyone! I’ve got standards! And it’s not like — Don’t fucking look at me like that, Stan — It’s not like I _want_ it per se, but like you said, maybe just to _try_ it, why not? Just because I’m curious and what to see what it’s like! And— Fuck you, man, stop laughing! — I wouldn’t do anything that involves butts! Just hands! That’s basically the same as just — I want you to leave my house right now! Just get out if you can’t shut up, you piece of shit!”

At this point Richie stood up and gestured towards the front door with one hand, the other one slammed onto the table. Stanley laughed so much he almost fell off the chair. His curls bounced and his head bobbed back and forward and all the teeth in his mouth showed whenever he accidentally lowered his hand. Richie couldn’t help but laugh too, but strained. Stanley had that sort of contagious laughter that made it impossible to keep a straight face, even if you didn’t get the humor.

”You said the same thing! What’s so funny?! You said you’d do it too!” Richie defended. It sounded like he was coughing, the way he choked back his laughter at the same time as he wanted to be grave. He glared the best he could and hoped that would be enough.

”No, I said that I don’t completely _neglect_ _the_ _idea_!”

”That’s the same fucking thing!”

”No!”

”What’s the difference then?!”

Stanley took a deep breath. He was struggling too, but then he clutched his hands on the table and, as if reciting a dictionary it between the chuckles, he told,

”That if I were confronted with a real-life situation, if someone suggested it or initiated it, I wouldn’t say no right off the bat. I would consider it first. But I’m not sure I’d agree to do it. In fact, I doubt that I would. But —”

”Okay, here’s your real-life situation then, Stanley Smartass Uris!” Richie declared. He crossed his arms overs chest and cocked his head upwards. He glared down at Stanley, who was still sitting, looking up with his mouth hanging slightly open. ”Here it is! Yes or no? Would you do it?”

”What?! Right now?!”

”Yeah!”

”With you?!”

”Yeah!”

Stanley seemed conflicted between the options of laughing it off like a joke or freaking out over the fact it was serious. Richie was honestly going through the exact same chaos because he had not thought twice about his suggestion before throwing it out it the open, but he couldn’t take it back now. His ears were probably a deep maroon color at this point. He was grateful for his longer hair now.

”I —” Now Stanley was in loss of words. He ran his hand through his hair and tilted his chair backwards, balancing on two legs. He let the chair fall back to its original position before pushing it back and getting up on his feet. ”You know what? Sure.”

He wasn’t taller than Richie anymore and in moments like this he seemed to hate that. Still, he crossed his arms over his chest and craned his neck, just like Richie, and so they both pretended to be the one in control while in reality neither of them had a clue what was going on. This was something Richie would have noted for future skits if he was a bystander watching, but he now was too caught up in the moment to think about anything but the present.

  
”Wait, were you serious?” Richie said at last, blinking dumbly.

”You weren’t?” Stanley’s voice was just a faint gasp of dread.

”Ehm —” He hadn’t thought this out yet, it hadn’t even crossed his mind before now. He faced Stanley and in a split second he had to revaluate everything he knew, it felt like. Were they like that? No, they weren’t. Richie wouldn’t date Stan, that much he knew right away. The thought felt strange and not very alluring. But then again, he was an eighteen-year old virgin and he was bored and restless and curious and and it wasn’t like Stanley was off-putting. And they were comfortable around one another, undeniably. So with that out of the way Richie concluded, ” — Yeah. I was serious.”

He couldn’t believe himself. What was he doing? He was suddenly very nervous, but he couldn’t deny the whole thing was quite exciting. He hadn’t planned for it to be Stanley, but the mere thought of it happening at all felt like a ray of hope, like an oasis in a desert that he didn’t expect to find.

”Okay.” Stanley nodded stiffly. He itched his neck. ”So…”

”Just to try it.”

”Yeah. Right. For science.”

”Exactly.”

Another pause. The pressure that lingered in the kitchen was so intense that it was a miracle that the porcelain didn’t break. Richie’s eyes wandered across the scene; the homemade bread, the teacups, the kettle, the half-melted butter and the bottle of milk. The curtains and the linen cloth. Broad daylight outside. It wasn’t a particularly sexy setting. He didn’t feel particularly sexy either, wearing a batik shirt and his ugliest jeans shorts. He barely even bothered to get dressed before Stanley came over, and Stanley had a sex appeal level of -30, clad in his khakis and a polo shirt.

”Eh —” Richie glanced behind him, towards the stairs that led upstairs. His parents wouldn’t be home for another couple of hours at least. He turned back to Stanley. ”You’ve… you know…?” He made the horrible mistake of gesturing with his hand. Embarrassed by himself, he then grabbed his own wrist behind his back and wished that he could just disappear.

”Forget it. I changed my mind,” Stanley said, holding his own hand as a shield to shroud his face. He shook his head and started collecting stuff from the table. He put it in the fridge and said, maybe more to himself than to Richie, ”This was a bad idea. Forget it. We’re just bored. Let’s just go outside for a bit.”

”Sorry, I just didn’t know if you…”

”Just how prude do you think I am?!” Stanley turned around. Now he was laughing but his face was a crimson read. He put both hands on his hips, let them fall, put them back up, put his palm to his forehead. It was wonderful to see him to messy. ”I think it’s uncalled for to make a huge deal about it, but I’m human, you know? Sometimes —” he hesitated, ” — You just have to! Right? You just need to take care of it!”

”Right!” Richie nodded erratically. ”I… I agree completely!”

They stared at one another for another couple of seconds. Richie tried to see Stanley from someone else’s perspective, someone who hadn’t known him for years and who wasn’t used to see him.

Stanley did, objectively, have a pretty face. There was something almost feminine about it, the way each shape and angle was slightly softened and how he seemed to take care of himself so well; neat eyebrows, smooth skin, always applying chapstick before his lips got patchy and dry. And his pianist hands were nice as well. Richie had noticed that before, but he had never thought about those hands in any other way but passively. Now the observation of his slender fingers made him feel something, made him see something, but he choked it down and shrugged the image out of his head, the same way that he always did when his untamed hormones started acting up.

Stanley looked at Richie up and down in the same way, frozen on the spot with the milk bottle in one hand. The whole situation was bizarre. But the more Richie thought about it, the more appealing it became. Just hands, of course. As friends. It didn’t have to lead to anything. In fact, it _wasn’t_ going to lead to anything. Just for fun and because it felt good. It wasn’t a weird thing, was it? Surely there were other guys who did it too!

”I —” Richie swallowed.

”For science,” Stanley was quick to say.

”Yes.”

Now he put the milk in the fridge and closed the door. This wasn’t what Richie had expected when he wanted Stanley to lower his guard to talk about how miserable it was to be a virgin, but then again, you could never be quite sure what Stanley Uris was going to do next. Now he had an almost electric energy radiating from him, a playful spark that was too frequently hidden in his worries and sense of duty. He patted Richie on the shoulder and started pushing him out of the kitchen. Richie just blinked in confusion when Stanley dragged him up the stairs, into Richie’s room.

”Now let’s do it, before I change my mind again,” he said as he closed the door behind them.

And that’s how Richie — not really, but sort of — lost his virginity. It's debatable if it really counted, but it was his first experience with someone else, that is fair to say. It was weird and still not so weird after all.

A pair of dirty socks laid on the floor, some other clothes thrown onto the chair in the corner. No kissing, no laying down and swirling around in the bedsheets. Just sitting on top of the bed, only hands, quick and without any excessive fuss. They didn’t even bother taking all of their clothes off, only enough so that they could reach. Very unromantic, as it was supposed to be.

The conclusion of the scientific experiment…?

It felt good. A little messy. Maybe a 7/10. Overall a fun experience. The awkwardness wasn’t too bad afterwards. Would do again. ( _Did_ do it again, just a couple of times though). As for future improvements…? Just make sure that the tissue box on the nightstand isn’t empty. And when your parents get home and ask you if you’ve had a nice day and what you’ve done, don’t look at each other like you’ve just exchanged handjobs but can’t tell the truth. Just say you drank tea and ate bread. Nobody else needs to know.

This also means that when your friends ask you if you’re a virgin, just let them believe that you’re an inexperienced loser, or else you joke it off and avoid answering altogether. It’s easier than explaining how come you’re _not_ a virgin— Just a tip, Stanley.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you didn't pick up on it - take notice how Stan is able to navigate in Richie's kitchen without asking him where to find things!! It's one of my favorite head canons. It's so soft c': Had to include it.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just a micro-dose of fluff tbh, but I love Bev and Richie's relationship so much

**June 8th 2020**

Richie had two hours to kill during the transfer in Boston. He was in a better mood overall. There was a funny tingle in his fingertips each time he thought of the fact that he was so close to home. It also struck him as natural to refer to Derry as his home, despite how much he used to hate it there and how he had, without even realizing, avoided the town and Maine his entire adult life.

He couldn’t remember going to Maine a single time for gigs or film shootings, and there was no reason for him to go unless it was for work. He didn’t ski, he didn’t hunt. Okay, there were other things to do in Maine, but out of all places in the world that he could choose to visit in his free time, why would he go to Maine?

Richie went inside a random store just to pass some time. Within the same store there was candy, alcohols, souvenir keychains and plushies, beauty products, magazines, some sweatshirts hanging on a clothing rack and a shelf with boardgames. A pretty average airport store, in other words. Airports were like tiny worlds inside a bigger world, a cut-off place where people from different parts of the world momentarily crossed paths while scanning the incoherent shelves in an overpriced store.

In the beauty department, amongst designer perfumes and endless of skincare items, Richie picked up a razor and a deodorant. He already owned an electric razor, but when he threw everything into his luggage before leaving the hotel he didn’t take into consideration that he would be able to access it before landing in Augusta. He found it, payed for it and left the store in a matter of five minutes.

He had never shaved in a public bathroom before, but he had seen other people do it. There was a large counter with several sinks and a mirror but he was the only one there, except for the cleaner who left with his trolly at the same time as Richie entered. The smell wasn’t half as bad as in public bathrooms at McDonald’s, it was almost a pleasant smell. The floor was still wet and smelled soapy. An empty takeaway mug was placed on top of the hand dryer, but that was the only trash that wasn’t put inside the bin mounted on the wall.

Richie washed his face and ran the wet hand through his hair too, pushed it back, out of it face. He realized that he forgot to buy a shaving cream, but regular soap would do for. He rubbed it over his cheeks and chin and down his neck and then he swept the razor over his skin with precise, practiced strokes. Facial hair was more a time consuming burden than anything else, but it hadn’t always been like that.

**May 18th 1990**

”Nuh-uh. That’s not how you do it,” Richie said, shaking his head firmly. ”That’s not how you do it. Listen to me, asshole, I’m trying to help. You’re supposed to —”

”I don’t want your help! I can do it just fine!” Eddie pushed Richie away with his free hand and leaned forward towards the mirror. He tilted his chin upwards and glared at his own face like it was a nasty infection. With an unsteady hand he moved the razor closer. ”I know how to do it,” he declared stubbornly.

”You’re going to cut your nose off with that.”

”Fuck you, Richie. That’s not even funny.”

Eddie had had a crippling fear of Michael Jackson, snakes, snub-nosed monkeys, porcelain dolls with their noses broken off, skulls, smileys with only eyes and mouths — just lack of noses in general, actually — for about a year. Nobody really knew if this was because his mother had maimed him with some horror story, if he had read something or if it was just one of his many irrational fears. Not even Eddie himself knew. Richie only knew that it was a frolic to tease him about it since it was so stupid — especially the genuine concern regarding noses rotting and falling off. Had that ever happened to anyone? Like, _ever?_

”I think you should listen to me instead. I’m the one here who has the most experience with shaving,” Beverly interfered. She leaned against the wall with her arms crossed over her chest. Her hair was pinned back with some bobby-pins, curling outward just above her shoulders. She was grinning the whole time.

”Yeah, but this isn’t a pussy shaving class, this is facial hair!” Richie reproached. He adjusted his glasses, feeling important, like a member of a special committee.

It was a cordial matter, shaving. It was new and foreign and thrilling. It officially marked the beginning of a new era and the ending of another. _Boys_ didn’t shave, but _men_ did. It was the masculine equivalent of getting your period, but unlike weird bleeding, it was classy and something you’d most definitely tell people about. That’s how Richie looked at it at least. He had announced it grandly to everyone he knew, (which wasn’t actually that many, but still), when he discovered the first paltry strand of hair on his chin. He hadn’t spotted any new sprouts since, but you can’t go back to being a boy if you’ve once become a man.

”Oh, but I’ve plucked my eyebrows before and sometimes I get tiny hairs here — ” Beverly traced with her finger at the corners of her upper lip, ” — and that’s more facial hair than you’ve ever had so shut up, Richie.”

”I naturally have a full beard, you ignorant fool! A real thick one, like Derry’s very own Santa! A viking, if you will! I just happen to be so marvelous at shaving that you’d never notice! Now, step aside mortal and let me instruct little Eddie Spaghetti here how to do it properly!”

”Don’t call me that and don’t talk to me, both of you, I’m trying to focus for fucks sake!” Eddie sneered, wavering with the razor in the air. ”You’re only making it more complicated!”

Richie tried to squeeze himself in between Beverly and Eddie by sheer force, pushing Beverly to the side. She rolled her eyes and shifted her weight from the wall, took a couple of steps away to sit down at the edge of the bathtub instead. She didn’t have her arms crossed like a disapproving sage anymore, but the spark in her eye as she watched the boys struggle was shrewd and teasing. To her this must have been nothing but a spectacle, the best form of entertainment, to watch them struggle. This trait of hers was probably the reason why she got along so well with Stanley, despite the two of them being very different otherwise.

She drummed with her fingers against the tub and tilted her head to the side as if she was waiting for them to prove themselves. It made Richie so nervous that he sternly turned his back against her and pretended that she didn’t exist. He didn’t want her to ruin the moment and he pleaded to her not to. He didn’t say it out loud of course, but he hoped with every cell of his body that she would understand that it was important that she stayed out of it. This meant nothing to her and everything to him.

”You’re not supposed to do it upwards!” Richie said, horrified, as he turned back to Eddie.

”I wasn’t doing it upwards, asshat!”

”Yes, you were! And that’s not even where the hairs grew! They were more to the right, somewhere under here!” Richie pointed at a spot below Eddie’s nose. ”Here, I can do it! Give me the razor!”

”No fucking way, you’ll cut my nose off!”

”Why the fuck would I do that?!”

Eddie had so much shaving cream on his face that he was practically drowning himself in it, which was even more hilarious if you knew that the hairs he was trying to shave off were scarce and barely even perceivable. It was actually Mike who had first pointed it out that they were there, surely with a good intention in mind, but Eddie freaked out and wanted to shave them off right away. He feared that he would end up looking like Henry Bowers otherwise, who had started to grow out a beard lately, but it was patchy and gross and made him look even more like a feral redneck than he did.

They had decided to meet at the Denbrough’s and head over to the clubhouse together. It was supposed to be a quick deal. Bill had prepared some hot chocolate in insulated bottles and was ready to go when the rest showed up outside, but then Eddie had pleaded him to lend him a razor because Mike had noticed the shadow on his upper lip. Mike had already apologized a billion times for it and tried to convince Eddie was the only reason he noticed was because of the angle, but none of that helped once Eddie had decided that the hairs needed to go _immediately_.

Richie tried to wrestle Eddie in an attempt to get the razor. Eddie wiggled around so that Richie couldn’t take it from him and yelled insults that drained out the sound of Richie’s instructions. Eventually Richie gave up on full sentences and started screaming just for the sake of it, like a long ’AHHHH!’, to which Eddie countered with an even louder ’AHHHH!’.

”Will you let me help?” Beverly sighed. Richie had successfully forgotten that she was even in the room. She sat sedately at the bathtub, hands clasped together.

”NO!” Richie replied.

”Yes, please,” Eddie replied at the same time.

”Move, Richie.” Beverly got up from the bathtub and flicked with her hand for Richie to get out of the way. ”Let’s just get this over and done with so we can leave. This is taking too long.”

”Yeah,” Eddie agreed. ”Sorry about that.”

Bill had peeped his head into the bathroom just a moment ago to ask them how it was going, which anyone could understand was a subtile way of telling someone to hurry the fuck up. He also asked them to be careful with the razor, but nobody listened when he said it and with a sigh he had left the three alone in the bathroom.

”Wait outside, Richie, you’re distracting me!” Eddie said, shoving him away with his spare hand, nose in the air.

Eddie could just as well had thrusted a swords right through him. But Richie, being a professional, gave him the finger and rolled his eyes. Then he went downstairs and joined the others — the part of the club who were nice and calm. They sat in the parlor, still wearing their jackets. Stanley glanced at his watch every now and then, sighing. Ben was more patient. He was sketching some new ideas for the club house, too absorbed in his work to even look up when Richie came down the stairs.

They should have known at this point that the other part of the club — Richie, Eddie and Beverly — always needed more time to finish things than you’d estimate. That was due to the fact that, in addition to the time it’d take to complete a task, you had to add a couple of minutes of wrestling, bickering and messing around. It was usually not Beverly’s fault, but whenever she decided to meddle with their arguments they turned ten times worse.

”What are they doing up there?” Mike asked.

”Oh, nothing much. Just shaving, I suppose,” Richie replied tersely.

”You think they’ll be done soon? We better get going before the rains starts.”

”You should tell them that. I’m ready to go.”

Eddie and Beverly remained in the bathroom for another couple of minutes. They were too quiet to be heard all the way down to the parlor, which they apparently weren’t before because Stanley said that their yelling could be heard all the way to the quarry. Richie couldn’t sit down. His body physically ached and he wanted to punch something, run around in circles, just do anything at all to get all the negative energy out of his system. He paced around until Eddie and Beverly came downstairs.

In that moment Richie thought he’d hold an eternal grudge against her. He refused to even talk to her while they headed towards the Barrens, and when she suddenly spoke to him when they arrived at the clubhouse he just replied in short, cold sentences. He decided that he wasn’t going to be friends with her ever again, but this grudge didn’t last for long.

They were in the clubhouse for several hours, drinking chocolate and chilling, and Richie and Eddie were arguing even more than usual. Dark clouds dwelled over Derry the whole time, threatening with their rain but they didn’t release it.

Eventually Beverly had enough of the arguing and told them both to get out. She said that it was because their bickering was too annoying, that she couldn’t bear listen to it anymore. She pointed towards the bushes and foliage that surrounded the clubhouse and told them to solve out their _’stupid fucking issues’_ elsewhere. She also declared that they weren’t welcome to come back in until they could swear that they wouldn’t argue anymore for the rest of the day.

This meant that Richie and Eddie sat outside the clubhouse alone for a long while. They didn’t solve their argument because, although neither of them stated it out loud, it was obvious that it didn’t actually matter. It was just fun to argue. Instead they sat on the ground amid the bushes, talking about other things. After forty minutes or so the rain started pouring and they hurried back into the clubhouse.

Richie didn’t thank Beverly for making them go outside. He just made sure to send her some grateful glances and hoped that she picked up the signal, just like she seemed to have picked up the signal that interfering with Eddie’s shaving had left Richie hurt. She was so nonchalant about the whole thing that it made Richie wonder if forcing Richie and Eddie to spend some time alone was actually just the punishment for being obnoxious, if he was the only who misinterpreted it as compensation for what she did earlier.

It wasn’t until it was time to go home that she nudged Richie in the ribs with her elbow and winked.


	10. Chapter 10

**June 8th 2020**

Richie splashed his face with cold water. He could still feel the wrath, how his blood had boiled. Oh, how he hated Beverly that moment. It made him chuckle now, but at the time it wasn’t fun at all. If defying Bill was one of the Losers’ holy rules, the other one was to not get in between Eddie and himself. At least it was a rule in his own head, but nobody else seemed to be aware that there was such a rule.

Richie faintly remembered that there was a couch in the clubhouse that evening. They probably had a sleepover not too long after that rainy day. It bothered him that he wasn’t sure. He really wanted to access that memory, wanted to know what happened.

There was a phantom taste of cheap hotdogs and chips on his tongue and a feeling of utter content. Perhaps that was an allude to the memory he couldn’t see? Eating hotdogs and chips was a natural part of clubhouse culture, they always did. It was also safe to assume that they didn’t get much sleep that night and the couch that they had stationed in the clubhouse was only big enough for two people to sleep on, if they slept really close. Richie would have paid a lot to know which two of the Losers got to share it, but no matter how he ransacked his own memory bank he simply couldn’t access it. Hopefully the memory of the sleepover in the clubhouse would return to him soon enough.

He laughed to himself and put the razor back in the plastic bag. The more Richie learned about his childhood, the more assured be became that it had been a delightful one. That’s not what he had thought when he was a kid who had never seen anything but Derry, but now that Richie had experienced the intensity and marvel of LA, New York and so many other places, he wistfully longed for the dullness Derry. The low pulse, the familiar streets, the Kenduskeag with its disgusting water and the changing seasons.

This time Richie tried to hold on to the haze rather than letting it go. He pleaded for the weird spirit-ghost-phantom-thing to endow more, more recollections and insights. The Boston Logan airport didn’t interest him anyway, escaping the terminal to revisit his childhood was a lot more appealing, no matter how weird it was. It scared him that he knew so little, and although he knew that there were things during his childhood that weren’t that great, he still wanted to know the truth of what actually happened.

He left the men’s bathroom and started strolling around aimlessly in the terminal. The whole time he tried to keep his mind open, hoping that new memories would feel more welcome to enter his mind. He watched the other travelers, some who were abounding with excitement, some who were just waiting for time to pass.

He patted at his jeans pocket and thought he felt the cigarettes, then he realized that it was the cursed notebook. He didn’t actually feel the urgency to smoke, although it had been several hours since his last one. It was a reminder, it had to be! The cigarettes wanted him to reach out for them, but not for the sake of smoking.Richie lifted his gaze and it — probably not by coincidence — landed on a family of four, who all had the same hair color, a burning shade of auburn. Richie cracked up in amusement. For the first time he felt like he was the one in control.

_’Beverly used to smoke. I know that. I am three hundred percent sure. I remember it.’_

He thought it over and over again, like a challenge to whoever was making all of this happen to him, a tease. He was egging it on, demanding it to give him more. Running away wasn’t an option anymore so now he demanded to know everything instead and he could feel his skin tingle with anticipation.

The family must have thought he was a lunatic when he observed them like that while frantically patting on his pockets. To his dismay they grabbed their baggages and started making their way towards the end of the terminal. The youngest daughter in the family was seated on top of the bags while her older sister pushed the trolly ahead of her. Sometimes she leaned over the handle, lifted her feet off the ground and glided over the floor.

Richie couldn’t follow them. That would be crossing all lines of common sense and respect. These poor folks just wanted to enjoy their vacation, not get stalked by a creep at the airport. He scratched his head and thought of what to do next. He could feel that another memory was near. It was still nebulous and lacked context, but he could see the blurry outline of Beverly’s face with a cigarette between his lips.

 _’It’s my fucking memory, give it to me!’_ he accosted the ghost in his brain. Then he pulled out the notebook and the pencil in a haste. He didn’t even have the chance to think.

Still standing in the middle of terminal, he tried to hold the book steady with one hand as he started sketching with the other. He didn’t even know himself what he was sketching. He was no artist, but he could draw some simple stuff. The swift movements of the pencil’s tip against the paper created a picture that was better than anything he had ever drawn even under proper circumstances. He could have spent an entire day in front of an easel with expensive art supplies and would still never had been able to make a picture this good. The pencil seemed to have a life of its own, an urgent energy that desperately wanted to show him something. Richie giggled to himself and nodded approvingly at his own work:

Two figuresseated next to one another, directly on the floor with their legs sprawling in all directions. Beverly was lightning her cigarette with a match. Richie blew out a puff of smoke. To their right, where the wall used to end there was now more space and a small couch instead. On the couch there were pillows and although Richie only had one color to work with, he could clearly see the colors of those pillow cases. They were plaid ones with deep red as the primary color, with some brown and navy and buttons down the side.

**May 23rd 1992**

”It’s too bad that the others couldn’t come,” Beverly said. She dropped the match on the floor and it extinguished the moment it hit the ground. She took a drag and blew the smoke out. ”But I’ve missed our philosophic smoking sessions. It’s been a while.”

”Right,” Richie agreed. ”I feel like my IQ decreased by, like, three hundred percent lately. It’s probably because we haven’t smoked enough.”

”Yeah, I bet that’s the reason,” Beverly chortled.

”I always feel dumber when we’re hanging out all together. It’s like my intelligence drops a little bit for each person added to the group, you know what I mean? I’m fucking Einstein when I’m alone, I’m not too bad when I’m alone with someone, I manage when there’s three of us… but as soon as we’re four, five, six —” Richie wavered with the cigarette, ” — I can’t fucking think!”

”I guess everyone is a bit like that.”

”No, not Stanley. He only gets more smartassy when there’s more people around.”

”Maybe not, but everyone else.”

”I don’t really know why though. Like, when I’m alone I don’t have anything to prove to anyone, so why am I smarter then?” Richie furrowed his brows and leaned back against the wall. ”Doesn’t make sense.”

”Weird shit, science.”

”No kidding.”

The clubhouse felt a bit empty with just the two of them there, but it was a nice empty. A simplicity of being just two, the silence, the stillness around them, it was such a precious moment and Richie didn’t wish for anything to distract him from it. The clubhouse felt like a separate world of its own, a place that existed outside of time, that nobody had marked out on any map. Especially when it was just the two of them in this separate universe it seemed surreal that other people were living their lives outside of the clubhouse.

It was cloudy but warm that Saturday. Richie had taken his jacket off and tucked it behind his back. Beverly wore a sweater that looked more appropriate for fall and winter, but shorts out of which her pale legs struck out. She had a nasty scratch on her left knee from when she fell over with the bike, and a pretty little chain around her ankle. It was one of those that you can attach charms to, although she had only collected three of them so far. Both of them had untamed hair and wilted postures, looking like two unkempt stray kids loitering around with nothing better to do. It wasn't even too far from the truth.

There was a mirror hanging on the wall in clubhouse but it was cracked and dirty and they had made an unspoken agreement that you weren’t supposed to care about vanity in the clubhouse. The only occasion when anyone actually remembered that the mirror was there was when they walked past and accidentally caught a glimpse of themselves from the corner of their eyes. The amount of times someone had skipped in surprise couldn’t even be counted anymore.

The clubhouse was a non-judging zone. Wear a shower cap if you want to, idle around naked if you want to (nobody actually did that, but in theory it would have been acceptable), let your hair look like a bird’s nest, eat chips for breakfast — whatever, who cares?

”The pillow cases you made are really cool. They do make this place nicer,” Richie noted, nodding towards the couch. ”I still prefer to sit on the floor, but it’s not because your pillows are too gross to touch or anything. It’s just because the floor is damn groovy.” He patted on the ground next to him, swept with his fingers in the dust. ”I love you, floor,” he crooned dreamily.

”Thanks,” Beverly said nonchalantly, ”And I’m totally with you on that. I hate sitting on chairs. My dad tells me that I need to sit like a lady, but have you ever tried to sit with your legs pressed together or with one leg crossed above the other? Not comfortable at all. I try to sit like that sometimes, but as soon as I’m not paying attention I just end up sitting like a sack of potatoes anyway.”

”I don’t think it’s that uncomfortable,” Richie shrugged.

”Really? Wanna switch?” Beverly sagged even lower, now settling in a half-sitting/half-laying down position with her legs spread out like V in front of her. She giggled mischievously and glanced up at Richie. ”You’re lucky you’re a guy.” She remained there for a while. The playfulness vanished from her face. Then she sighed morosely and pushed herself up again to the same position as she had had before. ”It sort of sucks to be a girl sometimes.”

”What do you mean?”

”There’s just so many rules about everything and there’s no way to win. People look down on you no matter what you do, either because you’re not ladylike enough or else _because_ you’re ladylike. You’re either too weak or else you’re too strong and need to calm down. And you’re either too obsessed with your looks or else you don’t care enough. And everyone will think that you’re stupid if you don’t have any opinions and hysterical if you do have some. I could go on forever.” Beverly rolled her eyes, perfunctory as if she had already given up. The dullness didn’t suit her. She was supposed to be furious. It was like someone had poured a bucket of water over a burning flame.

Richie swallowed and wet his lips. He had never really thought of it before, but now that she put it into words it was impossible to not see it. He felt a twinge of guilt but didn’t really know what to do with it. What she had just said applied to him too, he realized. It hadn’t occurred to him that his teasing and joking could make someone so sullen. He just wanted to make people laugh.

”You know —” he started, ” — I’m sorry about that, you know, that thing that happened when we spring cleaned. I didn’t mean to… well, you know, I…”

”Oh, don’t worry about that. It’s fine. I forgot it even happened to be honest.”

”I mean it though. Sorry.”

”Thanks, but… It’s okay. Really. The problem isn’t _one_ joke, Richie. The problem is that it’s a _never-ending_ joke that literally everyone is a part of. It’s not your fault. This isn’t new. It’s always been like this, pretty much.” Her head hung low and she fiddled with one of the charms on her anklet, not looking at Richie.

”I didn’t even realize.”

”Whatever, I guess that’s natural,” she was quick to say. ”I didn’t realize how much Mike bullshit needs to deal with everyday because he’s black either — not until he told me than he didn’t want to go to the arcade with me because every time he wins his opponent freaks out and calls him names and yells he needs to get lynched and stuff. People really are fucking awful. It’s not just Henry Bowers.”

Richie had it on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t say it. He had told everyone that he didn’t want to go to the arcade anymore because it was getting boring to win all the time and that the games were outdated. Nobody knew anything about Connor Bowers. They probably didn’t even know that Henry Bowers had a cousin, even less that said cousin had visited Derry. And even if they knew that much they’d never guess that Richie had played Street Fighter with him and for a second — just a second — he had thought that he had a chance to get over Eddie in the midst of frantically pressing buttons. Richie himself could barely believe it.

”But no-one is quite as bad as Henry Bowers though,” he said absently.

The name itself tasted sour to pronounce. The memory of his voice bellowing slurs and threats accompanied the name. It made Richie nervous just thinking about it. The only lucky part about Henry’s constant attacks was that nothing he said stood out from the ordinary so nobody was surprised if Bowers called someone a slur. It probably happened a couple of times a day. Richie could only hope that the other gamers thought he sprinted out of the arcade to escape Bowers, not to escape the truth that he spat out along with drops of saliva and infernal rage.

”Yeah, that’s true,” Beverly sighed. She paused for a moment before reaching for her bag. She had tossed it to the side when they climbed in and it hadn’t been thought of since. She put what was left of the cigarette between his lips and delved through it. She lit up as if she had a brilliant idea. Richie just watched her inquisitively. Then she pulled out a bottle of nail polish and tossed her cigarette away cursorily. ”Found it.”

”You’re going to paint your nails?” Richie asked, a tad confused.

”No. I want to paint yours!” She was smiling brightly now. Her fire had rekindled and it filled the clubhouse with vibrance. He was relieved that it had revived, but not for this purpose.

”What? My nails?” he blurted. _”Now?_ ”

”You don’t want to?”

Richie knew that it didn’t matter what he answered, she’d find a way to convince him anyway. She let the bottle dingle between her fingers. It appeared to be quite old and there was some polish that had dried as it trickled from the bottle cap, a red color that reminded Richie of the shade his grandma liked to wear.

”Hey, did you miss that thing we talk about like two seconds ago? About shithead people and Henry Bowers? You know, folks that don’t like it when people aren’t white men?” Richie stumbled, laughing awkwardly. He pushed his glasses up.

”Oh, but you _are_ a white man, Richie!”

Beverly reached for his hands but Richie yielded away. She had already started unscrewing the bottle cap with her teeth. She had to get up from the floor to crawl a bit closer. The whole time she was giggling and saying a stream of ’ _come on’, ’come here_ and _’lemme just’_. Richie shuffled his butt away from her, wanting to play along with the fun but feeling his throat choking up. He tossed his cigarette away too. It landed somewhere on the ground and would probably remain there, just like Beverly’s, until Stanley found it and picked it up with a displeased frown.

”Yes, I know, but I don’t think Henry Bowers wouldn’t exactly —”

”Who the fuck cares about what Henry Bowers think? Wouldn’t it be great to do it just _because_ he’d hate it? Just to show him we don’t give a shit about his opinion?”

”It’s hard to not give a shit when he’s smashing your skull in and throwing your corpse into the Kenduskeag, but I like how you think!” Richie flailed with a finger in the air.

”You can remove it later, don’t worry! You’d look so good with nail polish!” Beverly pleaded.

”I know, but listen —” Richie wanted to say it, tell her about the arcade incident, about everything, ” — It’s just not a good idea, alright? Let’s just smoke another round, okay?”

And so they did. They smoked and soon found something else to chat about. The temptation to tell her gradually dissolved until Richie was once more safe in his lair of silence. He’d never be free in there, but he’d never be hurt either. He knew that he would say it some day, but today was not that day. Some part of him thought that she knew already anyway, so why make it more difficult than necessary?

They did talk about plenty of interesting things, and just like Richie always when heading home after hanging out with Beverly, he could feel his brain working like a powerhouse of ideas and reflections. Philosophic smoking sessions were sacred, their secret ritual that nobody else in the club knew anything about aside from that they happened every once in a while. Returning to the real world was so eerie that it Richie suspected that they had been lost in time for centuries rather than just an afternoon.

He walked home feeling a bit dizzy, but in a good way. Perhaps their cigarettes were spiced up with something? Nah, they couldn’t be. They took them right out of the package and didn’t let anybody else touch them. He was just stunned by everything. Derry was like a new place when he regarded it through the lens of a foreigner. The people who spotted him on his way home didn’t know how weird he found them. They looked at him with questioning expressions on their faces, but it was probably just because they wondered why he was staring at them. Still, it made Richie a bit nervous. Maybe he was getting paranoid now?

He had to calm himself with the rational knowledge that nobody could tell he had red nail polish on his toes through the fabric of his sneakers.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is one of my personal favorites, hope you like it too!

**June 8th 2020**

When Richie had landed in Augusta it didn’t take him long until he found a bus that would take him to Derry. The silence, the nature, the fresh air — it was almost hypotonic so he sat in awe for a long while after the bus had left the station, unable to think, but very able to feel. A wistfulness welled up inside that he couldn’t put into words, not even in his brain.

The bus whirred loudly but the sound eventually faded into the background as the ears become used to it. On the shelf above Richie’s seat the luggage rattled when the bus drove over an inconsistency in the road and each time it stopped. He rested his head against the window glass and watched the scenery outside.

Richie had traveled traveled by bus countless of times, sitting just like this. The frayed seats, the smell. Nothing much had changed except the conversation topics that the other passengers talked about, heads close together, backpacks dropped on the floor by their feet. There were only a couple of them; an elderly woman, a twenty-something guy with headphones, a group of teenagers in the back, and two middle school girls who sat at the very front near the driver.

”Yes, we’re on the bus now,” one of the girls said, her phone pressed against the side of her face with a shoulder. She was rummaging through her bag at the same time, using both hands. ”Yes, of course… uh-huh… Everything has gone okay so far… It’s just three more stops, I think… yes… okay… See you soon then!”

The existence of phones explained why the girls were allowed to travel by themselves. Richie had to wait until high school — unless he was willing to sneak out and tell his parents that he was staying at Stanley’s but, despite his own claims, he wasn't a gangster. He only got into trouble by accident. He didn’t start moving around on his own until high school. That’s when he started working at a rental store in Bangor.

The distance itself was tiring since he had to get up early to be on time, but the daily struggle to get home again after the working day drove him insane. He had a peculiar relationship to busses at the time. The mere sight of one made him angry, and yet he loved them because each time they took him away from Derry he felt free. The reason why they made him angry was because the ride back to Derry was such a hustle.

The wind pushed him backwards when he approached the station, his return ticket wasn’t to be found in his wallet where he put it, there was a delay in the traffic, trees fell and blocked his path, spectacular events happened in town that tempted him to stay for just a bit longer. There was always something that interfered and some days it just didn’t seem worth the effort to go back, only to return the next day.

”Maybe you could rent a room in Bangor? That would be more convenient, wouldn’t it?” Ben had suggested.

Indeed it would, Richie knew. He had in fact already found a place. It had a perfect location, just a ten minute walk away from work, everything in good condition, nice view from the living room, for a rent that was unbelievably cheap for what it was — and in addition to all of that, the two that he’d get for roommates were both really cool. They had met before and Richie could easily imagine himself living with them for a year before heading off to collage.

But at the same time it scared him how easy it was, it was _too_ convenient, _too_ perfect to be real. There had to be a catch to it. It couldn’t be this great. Feeling anxious about the whole deal, Richie had rejected the offer and kept struggling with the bus every day when the workday was over.

The one time he drove to work with his dad’s car, he found it with a smashed window and a flat tyre when it was time to drive home. He never tried it again because he knew that it would happen again if he did. He couldn’t explain why, but there was no doubt about it — somehow his way back to Derry would get interfered with.

The most ridiculous thing that ever happened was when an aggressive cat chased him away from the bus station, hissing and making fierce leaps to reach him, claws popped out and teeth exposed. Its eyes were a glowing yellow that made it look possessed. Richie ran up and down the streets of Bangor, considered plunging into the Penobscot River to escape the beast and cursed in every Voice that he knew. Nobody had claimed the cat as theirs, nor come to his rescue.

”You were supposed to be home five hours ago, Richie. Grandma was really disappointed that you weren’t here for dinner, you know? You have to call her and apologize! She had been looking forward to see you for so long, you’re never visit her these days,” Richie’s mother scowled, one hand on the door frame, the other on her hip.

Richie, with a rip in his jeans and scratches on his hands and arms (he made an attempt at fighting the cat face to face, claws versus fists and it didn’t end well), had just sighed. It was almost midnight and he had truly looked forward to see Grannie and have some of her cake. All he wanted was to come inside, have something to eat and go to sleep. Now he held his arms out from his body, palms open, shoulders pulled up to his ears.

”I got chased by a demonic cat, mom,” he had told her earnestly.

Now in retrospect Richie found it rather amusing to think about, but he remembered how mad he was because his mom didn’t believe him. He covered his mouth with a closed fist and tried to stifle his chuckles. He turned his face to the window so that the other passengers wouldn’t see a middle aged man laugh to himself, but nobody seemed to be paying him any attention anyway.

That year when he worked in Bangor passed so quickly that it was almost surreal. Thinking back at it, Richie realized that the year he worked at the rental store was actually the bridge between Derry and Not-Derry, the connection between childhood and adulthood that had been lost for so long. When Richie thought about it everything cleared up.

He pulled out the notebook and the pencil again. This time he tried to draw a straight line, but with the bus moving and his hands not particularly steady, the line turned out wobbly. Anyway, it worked just fine for the purpose, it didn’t have to be all neat and perfect. The stretched like a wave across two empty pages. In that same moment Stanley’s voice seemed so real, it spoke in his mind in that proper, distasteful tone,

_’That’s an ugly line, Richie. Why don’t you use a ruler?’_

_’Because I don’t have a fucking ruler, Stan, give me a break,’_ Richie thought.

He proceeded to scribble 1976 at the left end of the line. At the other end he wrote 2020. He wet his lips and concentrated. He did the math in his head without much difficulties. As a comedian he frequently got misjudged as an airhead, as someone didn’t have much of substance in in skull but foul words and immature jokes. Nobody ever asked him so solve an equation or tell them about his political views, it wasn’t a natural part of his profession and who would care for a comedian’s opinion on anything? Yet it bothered him.

Nobody acknowledged how much he knew about movies, scripting and characters. Nobody acknowledged how much time and effort he had spent into watching hundreds of movies, analyzing characters, rewriting scripts for the movies that he didn’t like, and practicing his own acting. He literally spent his entire childhood working towards a goal, but once he got there his craft got neglected and replaced by someone else’s shitty work.

 _’I deserved better than that,’_ Richie told himself for the first time.

Now he also remembers wherefrom the Voice he named The Sailor came from.

**October 5th 1993**

One pile of VHS-films were placed on a plastic stool, another one waited on the floor right next to it. Richie carried as many as he could, posture leaning backwards, chin pressing down against the pile to keep it stable. His glasses had slipped down on his nose but he couldn’t push them back up. He veered into the Science Fiction isle. With a bit of swearing and his tongue sticking out between his lips, he managed to slip _Edward Scissorhands_ , _Back to the Future_ 2 and 3, and _Ghostbusters_ into the right department, which was a box standing on top of a table in the middle of the isle.

”Everything alright there, Tozier?” Pepper cackled from behind the cashier counter. His voice was husky and everything he said sounded a bit intimidating, but Richie had learned that he was actually a nice man who rarely scolded anyone. He was only teasing.

”Yeah, no probs!” Richie replied.

He balanced the pile on his left hand to reach out with his right. With a hasty little flick, he adjusted the sign that read ’Sci-Fi’. It was actually just a folded paper that Pepper had hung over the edge of the box, and all the other boxes were marked the same way. ’Romance’, ’Adventure’, ’Horror’, ’Drama’. There were shelves lined up along the walls as well, making each isle a narrow corridor where you could’t pass if there was already someone else standing there.

”You’re faster than Greg,” Pepper said when Richie passed on the way to the other side of the store. Pepper scraped his teeth with a toothpick, sitting on a chair behind the counter with his shoes on top of it. The chair looked very tiny under his massive body as he was both tall and wide. He watched Richie with a content grin. ”I was so sad when the kid left, but now I’m starting to think that it was all for the better. Is that mean?”

Richie didn’t answer. He was fully focused on his task. Sorting movies wasn’t his favorite thing to do in the store, so by the time the costumers started coming in he wanted to be done with it. Then Pepper would let him help the costumers instead. Now he had about twenty minutes left before the rush hour started since most costumers dropped in after work. He usually had a lot of sorting to do on Mondays since that’s when people returned the movies they had rented over the weekend. Luckily, he knew the shelves and boxes well at this point so he could move without having to think too much about where to put everything. The pile dwindled swiftly and after ten minutes he only had one last film in his hand.

”Pepper, tell me why this movie is so popular!” Richie frowned, holding it up. ”It’s too —” He looked down at the front side, flipped it over to see the backside, then back again. He made a reproachful grimace at the sight of the main actors, ” — good!”

”Well, isn’t that why people like it?”

”Yes, but they know nothing about film! They —”

”I sure hope you don’t tell the costumers that, son.”

”No, of course I won’t,” Richie hurried to say, ”But I know literally so many movies that are better than this bullshit! Good is so _bland_ , you know? It’s boring! Wouldn’t you rather watch a movie that is exciting, thought-provocative, hilarious — ” he counted on his fingers, ” — revolutionary or _sharp_? You know, the kind of movies that make you you _’oh, shit, that line really hit!’_? Like a punch that hits at the exact spot, like a genius joke or something that makes you think about it for days afterwards?”

Pepper laughed and put his feet back on the floor. He got up and positioned himself leaning over the counter, the toothpick twisting between his teeth. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up, revealing lots of hair and a faded tattoo of an anchor. He tilted his head a little to the side, watching Richie’s every move as he went to get the next pile of movies to sort.

”People won’t remember a movie simply because it’s good, because there are so many movies that are good. Actually, I think most are. They’re easy, you know, so you enjoy them while you watch them, the characters are charming, the plot is entertaining enough to hold your attention for an hour and a half — but then what?”

Richie put a movie into the shelf for old classics. He didn’t turn around to face Pepper, nor he did care very much whether the manager was listening to his rant or not. He just needed to say it, the words poured out of him without giving him an opportunity to stop them. He didn’t even realize until he started working for Pepper just how badly he wanted to talk about movies, how many thoughts he had inside of him that wanted to get out.

”Unless it has something more than ’good’, you won’t even remember it!” he continued, ”You won’t forget a punch in the face, but it’s easy to forget someone being polite to you, isn’t it? Maybe I’m fucked up, but I’d rather get punched in the face. That leaves a mark, you know? And the most brilliant movies that have ever been made, they were the ones that left a mark, right? I think the niche stuff is usually better than the mainstream comedy, because mainstream comedy is too safe. Playing it safe it fucking _lame!_ ” Richie groaned dramatically, throwing his head back.

Now Pepper had quietly left the counter to lean against one of the shelves, from where he could watch Richie closer. He had his arms crossed over his belly, the toothpick still between his lips.

Richie’s arms flailed like they were much longer than Richie himself thought they were, like a marionette doll with a drunk pulling at the strings, and yet he managed to move at an impressive speed. He only had to stop to push his glasses up and to pull his pants up. Even with a belt they sagged over his bony hips but they were the coolest pants he owned, and he had thus worn them almost every single day since he started working at the rental.

”Sure, sometimes you take jokes too far and someone gets pissed or they just don’t get it, but _if_ you succeed — holy shit — it’s so worth it!” Richie smiled brightly at the mere thought. ”A joke that is like a punch in face, the stuff that forces you to react because you just can’t ignore getting punched — That’s the best thing! That’s when you laugh so much that you can’t breathe! But the thing is that these mainstream movies, they are made to appeal to as many as possible to make cash, right? They don’t take any risks. That’s why they’re good, but they are never brilliant.”

Where there had been empty gaps in the shelves, there were now movies. They looked like multicolored walls of covers and titles. It was always satisfying to see everything in order. Richie even made sure to push the films in all the way to the back of the shelf so that none stood out more than the other. Only a few annoying exceptions were larger or smaller than the rest.

”I wish that some of the unrecognized comedians and actors had a chance to do their thing, because I’m sure that they could bring some new life into the entertainment industry. And I know that they’re out there, so the issue isn’t that the actors that we know are the only ones available or anything. There’s so many people who are better than these asshats who don’t even dare to breathe because they’re afraid it’s too controversial! They just need a chance, you know? Why don’t the Hollywood folks give them a chance? Can you tell me that, Peps?”

Now Richie paused to turn around, hands already empty. He winced back in surprise when the bear-like man was so much closer than he had expected him to be, bumping into the table behind him.

”Fuck, you scared me!” he exclaimed, rubbing the aching spot on his hip.

He was out of breath but now the urge to speak had settled at last. Some part of him was a bit ashamed of his tendency to ramble and rant, knowing that there were people who thought he was unbearable and annoying, but Pepper only looked proud. It made Richie feel a bit weird.

”Tozier, I think you should work with comedy,” Pepper said calmly. It was probably an opinion or a piece of advice, but it sounded like an order when he said it.

”I already do,” Richie replied, tapping on the shelf next to him.

”No, no, no,” Pepper laughed, waving a hand from side to side. ”Not like this. You should _create_ stuff. Make your own movies, do standup, have a TV-show, something that lets you be the star. It’s a waste of your passion and talent to have you sort other people’s work into boxes. I know that you’re talented.”

”I’ve never actually created anything though.”

”Maybe not, but you have a way of talking with our costumers that make them come back here to talk to you again. I can’t do that, I just scare them away. Greg couldn’t do it either. He was a good type of person while you are a punch in the face type of person. I haven’t told you, but our sales are better now than they’ve ever been. The increase started once I hired you. You have some kind of talent, don’t fight me on that.”

Richie didn’t even know what to say anymore. His lips were parted and he looked up at Pepper through the thick glass of his glasses, feeling like an awestruck child. His hands had curled up near his chest.

”I’m glad to have you here, but it’s selfish of me,” Pepper said, ”I’d be more that willing to let you stay for the rest of the year. But if you don’t apply to some film school for next year, I’ll have to strangle you, son.”

He winked and left the isle to greet a costumer who had just come in through the door. His voice could clearly be heard in every corner of the store, possibly even in the neighboring boutiques, out on the street and on Mars. A punch in the face kind of voice, if you will.

Richie stayed behind. With his back against a shelf, he slowly sunk to the floor. He covered his mouth and giggled. Why he giggled, he didn’t know, because there was nothing particularly funny about what Pepper had just told him. Yet, there was a feeling that could best be described as fireworks exploding inside of him. That day he sorted the last pile of films faster than he had ever sorted before, and he enjoyed chatting with the costumers about movies more than ever — all of this with the comforting knowledge that Pepper was watching him the whole time, smiling.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!
> 
> So, we're getting closer to Derry!!
> 
> I want to thank you for reading, and I also want to ask you some questions. You don't have to answer, of course, but if you'd don't mind taking a minute I'd really appreciate it! I'm always trying to improve my writing, so I'm curious to hear what you think.
> 
> I've noticed that my ST-works attract more readers than my IT-works (which I suppose could be because the ST-fandom is bigger, but idk), and I have intentionally written them a bit differently to see what works best. I don't know if any of you have read any of my other works - if you have it'd be so helpful if you would like to tell me which ones you like better and why - but even if you haven't, I'd love to hear your thought on the following:
> 
> 1) Do you prefer works that are focused on one specific relationship or works that highlight different types of relationships (relationship to oneself, friendship, romance, sibling, mentor-pupil etc)? 
> 
> 2) Do you like linear works more than time skips? Do you prefer works that take place over the course of a shorter time span, or works that stretch over an entire lifetime?
> 
> 3) What are some instant no-nos in fics that make you lose your interest right away?
> 
> 4) How long do you think a chapter should be? Would you rather read a work with many short chapters than a work with fewer long ones?
> 
> 5) How do you feel about implied/non-explicit scenes? Would you rather insert your own imagination or have the writer spell it out for you? Do you get more interested to read something if you know there will be explicit scenes, or do you feel awkward about it?
> 
> 6) Do you think it's okay to write about teenagers who get turned on/think about sex/masturbate etc? When do you think it crosses the line from realism (let's be real, most teenagers are not innocent) to underage porn? Is it okay for someone who is young themselves to write about young characters?
> 
> 7) How important is it for a story for have a plot? Do you read fanfiction for the pairings only, or do you read for the plot?
> 
> 8) Do you like it when the plot line is revealed in the summary and in the tags, or do you like to read and find out as you go (spoil-free)?
> 
> Thank you in advance! Have a nice day! c:

**June 8th 2020**

Richie scribbled one time stamp after the other. Doing the math and making his brain put the puzzle pieces together filled his chest with a triumphant pride. It felt like spitting all the people who thought he was stupid in the face. The memories he had regained were put onto the timeline and some things were added because he calculated that it _should_ have happened a specific year. He wasn't sure about exact dates, but based off trends and the appearances of the people, he could estimate roughly.

The length of Beverly’s hair, for instance, was an easy way to tell. The size of Ben’s stomach was another as it shrunk significantly half-way through high school. Mike’s hair was also a reliable tell. He let it grow until it became difficult to squeeze a sunhat on top of the afro, which should have been in their junior year. Some time in 1991 he let Beverly shave a design on the left side of his head, but that suited him no better than a leather motor jacket and a nose piercing would have, so she had to shave it all off to get rid of it that same day.

Richie smiled and wrote the best he could. His handwriting was crooked and barely readable, but he knew what he was doing. He couldn’t wait until he was in Derry, although the idea of sitting down to do the work at Uncle Sam’s was rather appealing. How sweet wouldn’t that be, to return to the cafe, have a cup of coffee and recall his childhood? But he was conscious of the risk that his bubble would burst, that everything he knew could dissolve like smoke. He had to write it down now that he was clearsighted and focused.

He tapped with the pencil against the notebook and puckered his brows. He remembered that Bill’s stutter was at its worst ’88-’89. In Richie’s memories Bill’s speech was palpably more coherent and smooth in high school, although the stutter was there still.And it was during their final year that Mike’s grandfather died and he became the official owner of the farm. It was a bit of a hustle, both in legally and emotionally, but in the end he sold the farm to a friendly fellow who let him visit any time he wanted. If it hadn’t been because of the distractions Mike would have graduated with good grades for sure, but Richie had a vague memory of Mike saying,

”I’m okay with it. I didn’t intend to get into a fancy school anyway. I don’t mind staying here.’

Richie didn’t remember actually graduating high school, but unless he failed and had to redo a year or two, he should have graduated in 1993. That made sense, because when he worked in Bangor in the fall later that year, _’I will always love you’_ by Whitney Houston played all the time on the radio. Solid time mark.

The timeline was becoming comprehensive and full of notes and keywords. The notebook was only pocket-sized so he couldn’t fit much more on the two pages. In lack of other solutions, he started scribbling notes on there pages as well. A single word, a name, a quote said by someone without knowing who said it, an address, a description of a piece of clothing or a room that came to mind.

The last thing he could fit on the page with the timeline was the word _’Graduation’_ , written in the tiniest letters he could produce with the tip of the pencil. He connected it with a line to the 1993-stamp. Then a vision of black gowns and the sound of cheering popped up in his mind and that’s when it became impossible to think of anything else.

**June 1993 — graduation**

”I did it! I did it!” Beverly held her diploma in her hand and she moved so hectically that her hat almost fell off her head and her earrings dangled. She hugged anyone within reach and tossed her head backwards, laughing so loudly that some other people turned their head to stare. ”I did it!” she sang and skipped up and down.

Richie hadn’t seen her so worked up ever before, or at least not in that bubbly way. She resembled a burst of confetti, unstrained and colorful. Her hair flopped form side to side, her lips were painted with a bright red that surprisingly flattered her very well. She had even painted her nails for the occasion, probably using every single color she owned. People could stare as much as they wanted, Richie didn’t feel any less proud of her. It was only fair that she got a chance to do her thing, to feel like she had done good enough.

”I knew you could do it! I told you!” Ben said, stumbling backwards when she bounced all up in his face. He laughed cordially and in that moment anyone could see that Ben was a handsome man in the making, with eyes that glittered and a charm that could warm even the coldest of people.

  
”I didn’t think I was going to pass mr Johnsson’s class. But then, after you explained it to me, it just _clicked!”_ Beverly exclaimed, her free hand on her forehead, eyes bewildered as if she couldn’t even believe it herself. ”And I was sooo sure that I was going to fail both math and history, I honestly have no idea how I managed to get a D+! I don’t even know what to say!”

”SHE DID IT, FOLKS! LISTEN UP, DERRY! BEVERLY MARSH DID IT!” Richie yelled into an imaginary megaphone. His voice was loud enough without one, it could be heard even over the music and chatter. Ben winced and covered his ears but Beverly joined in,

”I DID IT! I PASSED!”

Derry had never seen such a frolic. Maybe every graduation class thought the same thing, that their year was more special than any other, but now was not the time for being cryptic. It was impossible to be. There was so much to be glad for all around, it was even to be found in places and people that normally made you feel nothing but distaste. Richie smiled the whole time, teeming with all sorts of feelings. He was proud, first of all — of everyone, himself included.

Not only did he make it through, he actually had impressive grades and that paper — which was now in the safe hands of his mother instead of his own — symbolized the greatest freedom he had ever had. For the first time in his life, he had a choice. He could decide what he wanted to do next and because of his A+ grades there was hardly any school that could reject him. He could finally leave Derry. There was nothing holding him back here anymore but himself. He didn’t intend to leave right away, partially because he didn’t have the money for it and partially because he didn’t want to rush it.

But regardless, just knowing that from now on he’d get to think for himself, come up with his own plan, made him yell out loud (just a long ’AHHHH’, not an actual sentence) until the school librarian patted him on his shoulder and asked him to ’calm down a little’. Not even that could ruin his joy. Aside from being prouder than ever, he was also in awe. After having dreamt of graduating for so many years, it was hard so grasp that it was finally happening.

”Well done, Richie,” Stanley said. He had just managed to slip away from his family who wanted to take a billion pictures. Now he pushed past some classmates who were singing from the top of their lungs but so out of tune that a drunk donkey could have produced a better sound.

”You too, Stan,” Richie replied. He pulled him into a hug and rubbed his hand over his shoulder. Their hats bumped together and almost fell off. ”It was totally worth it, wasn’t it?”

Stanley was smiling so much that his nose scrunched a little. It rarely did but it was the most wholesome thing to see. The finals really did take their toll on him. He had been quite dull for a while, but now you could physically see the weight lifted from his shoulders and the life coming back to him, making his cheeks get their color back and the sallow tone beneath his eyes gradually fade for each passing day.

”For sure.” He raised his diploma and grinned. The work had paid off. He let out a happy sigh and looked around him. Their classmates, parents and teachers were all gathered outside the high school building. Pictures were being taken, everywhere there were people hugging, congratulating one another, weeping parents and flowers being handed over. He turned back to Richie, ”It’s weird that it’s over though.”

”Oh, please don’t get all sobby now! I _beg_ you!” Richie whined. He pushed Stanley’s shoulder. ”Don’t ruin this! This is amazing! We’ll do better things from now, right? I won’t shed a single fucking tear for leaving Derry High School!”

”This is j-jhust the start!” Bill said, appearing behind Stanley’s shoulder.

His hair was combed neatly with a side part and he had a bundle of flowers in his hand. Bill had also graduated with pretty good grades, but he — just like Eddie — was very inconsistent. He was an excellent writer and shocked teachers and friends alike with his vocabulary. His stutter forced him to speak with brevity, using no words longer than two syllables and no excessive lull, so unless you read his essays and novellas you’d never guess he was so excellent with expressions and words. His ability to do anything else, on the other hand, was just about average. He passed biology with a very meekly margin.

”Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Stanley agreed. ”But Ben’s heading off for collage now, and so are you. And Eddie might get in if someone else drops out.”

”Yes, but I’ll come b-bhack often.”

”Eddie’s mom won’t let him leave so that’s not going to happen,” Richie frowned.

He spotted Eddie at the edge of the commotion, near the school’s parking space, trying to convince his mom that graduation was an important occasion while she tried to pull him into the car to take him home, red-faced and furious. Richie knew that it was vain to even try to interfere, it would only make it worse. They had already decided to meet Eddie later to have their own little celebration in the clubhouse. If his mom was in a bad mood, she’d never let him go even to see his best friends.

”I’ll stay here!” Mike cheered, holding a hand in the air. Bill took a step to the side to let him join their semi-circle. ”So there will always be at least one loser in Derry, that’s for sure.”

”You don’t have to stay here your whole fucking life just because you didn’t get amazing grades, you know? You could work at a farm in Florida if you wanted to. You sure as hell don’t need A+ in chemistry to do that,” Richie assured him.

”It’s not the end of the w-world.”

”Oh, but I’m okay with it. I’ll stay here. I’ll keep you company when you come back for the holidays and keep the clubhouse in good condition. I’ll study somewhere around here, just some simple stuff so that I can work at the library. I’ve already talked to the librarians about it.” Mike nodded towards the library building, which — as always — loomed in the background. If he was troubled about his future, he hid it very well. He carried himself lightly and smiled as much as ever.

”Yeah, and some of us will stay for at least another year, so it’s not like we’ll ditch you all at once,” Richie said.

Now the clique were joined by Ben and Beverly. Beverly threw one arm around Mike’s shoulders and the other around Stanley, popping her head in between them. At this point she had lost one of her earrings but she didn’t seem to have noticed. Ben got some pats on his back for his grades and the fact that he already had a university program waiting for him in the fall. He yielded away from the attention, coy smile on his lips.

”I’m just so happy I got to meet you guys,” Mike said. His tone had changed abruptly from lighthearted and merry to heartfelt, ”I don’t think I would have made it through these years without you. I never thought school could be this fun. Honestly, I’m a bit sad it’s all over now.”

”Shh, don’t get started on that, Stan’s gonna cry!” Richie hissed, a finger to his lips.

”Shut up!” Stanley pushed him.

”I’m serious though, don’t joke this off. I want you to know that I’m very grateful that I have you.”

Mike looked at each one of them and, despite smiling, his eyes had started to water and he blinked frantically. It was hard not to get affected by it. Mike’s speech moved them more than any of Bill’s ever had. Maybe it was the soft, tender tone in Mike’s voice that unlocked hearts in a way that Bill’s stern voice couldn’t. Before Richie knew it, he was also blinking a lot. He pretended that he got something in his eyes and took his glasses off, avoiding looking at Mike at all cost. He wasn’t the only one who tried to play it off. Stanley failed to stop himself from crying and that’s when the gathering turned into a group hug.

”Eddie should be here,” Ben said, glancing woefully towards the parking. ”We can’t let him leave now. He should be a part of this.”

”It’s no use,” Beverly sighed, wiping her eye. ”But this won’t be our official end-of-school moment. He’ll be a part of the real deal, later. Mike, save your speech for the clubhouse. And let’s remember that we have all summer together ahead of us. Nobody’s leaving until fall.”

”And just because we head off for collage it doesn’t mean we can’t still be friends. Remember how Stan used to be afraid that things were going to change in high school?” Ben said. Everyone did. ”But here we are, right? And if we’ve been friends for this long, why would it suddenly come to an end just because we move away to study for a bit?”

And so they postponed the emotional speeches and crying. Beverly made sure to call Greta’a bitter cunt who needs to sort her life out’ before leaving the graduation ceremony. Richie managed to get a rip in his gown, but he considered it suitable for his punk vibes (”What punk vibes?” Stanley chortled), and he soon realized that the slit was perfect for sticking out his left leg seductively.

They made sure to leave early so that they could start working on the plan — Operation Rescue Eddie — as soon as possible. It took a while, but in the end Eddie managed to sneak out the window from the second floor. He didn’t even care about the tiny scratch he got on his knee when it grazed against the window panel.

”If my mom finds out I’m not in my room she’s going to have a heart attack,” Eddie said. He laughed when he said it.

They had decorated the clubhouse in advance. Unfortunately the only ballons available were single colored red ones, but they sprayed some confetti and bought some nicer sausages than they usually ate to make it festive. Mike finally got the radio to work, so for once there was actual music coming from the speaker.

It was an amazing evening, but the clubhouse meeting left them all emotionally wrecked. So many shifts from laughter to crying and the usual bickering, in addition to having celebrated earlier and already drained themselves of energy. They also danced, but the clubhouse wasn’t spacious enough for them to move around properly (not to even mention that none of them could actually dance) so it was mostly Richie who did the dancing on his own while the rest threw themselves out of the way to avoid getting knocked over by his flailing arms.

Despite the conflicted feelings that arouse every now and then, they managed to convince themselves that this was just the beginning, that great things waited ahead of them. This chapter of their lives had come to and end, but a new chapter was about to begin. They shared a bottle of cheap wine and raised their glasses, solemnly.

”To the prosperity of the Losers Club! For wealth and health! For eternal friendship ’til death tears us apart!” they cheered.

**June 8th 2020**

They met all seven for the last time later that summer, but that’s something Richie didn’t remember when he sat there on the bus many years later. He cried silently, thinking about how he missed all of it and how lucky he was to be on his way back. He hoped that he’d find Mike in the library, aged but still smiling the way he used to, with his white teeth gleaming and his eyes squinted. In that moment he couldn’t even imagine Mike _not_ being there waiting for him.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't find any exact date for the reunion, but please tell me if you know it so I can fix it!

**June 8th 2020**

It was twilight when Richie disembarked the bus and the wheels of his luggage slammed against the asphalt. The air was crisper than in New York, less humid, and the empty street was beautiful in the most eerie way. Not a soul except himself, but there were countless of maples and fields stretching far on both sides of the road. The bus rolled off and disappeared around a curve. Once the sound of the engine was too distant to perceive, the only thing to be heard was the rattling of leaves in the trees. A single bird warbled in the distance and crickets chirped perfunctory in the grass that grew in the ditch, as if they were saving their energy for later. A tractor was parked at the edge of the field on the left side, right where the straw met the woods. Even the tractor appeared small in contrast to the openness.

Mike’s grandfather used to own the fields here. He cared for the corps with such tenderness that Richie sometimes laughed at it. Now that he hadn’t seen any open landscapes in a while he could see the beauty. The pink sky, the barren simplicity. Richie felt pathetic, standing there with his luggage. He couldn’t even bring himself to move. All he did was breathe all the impressions in, instilled them, embraced them.

He remained there until the next bus approached, twenty minutes later. That’s when he decided to get going. The walk to downtown Derry was approximately fifteen minutes, ten if you hurried and seven if you were chased by Henry Bowers with a knife. He hoped that none of his old enemies had stepped off the bus now. He heard the doors open behind him.

He started walking along the edge of the road, trying not to let the luggage’s wheels slip into the ditch but staying out of the way in case a car would come. Nobody had bothered making a pavement around here, but the sign which read ’ _Welcome to Derry_ ’ had been replaced by a nicer one that didn’t look like it came straight out of a horror movie. When he walked the luggage’s wheels vibrated against the ground and it numbed the hand that held the handle. He kept the pace up, just in case it was Greta or Henry himself. The bus drove past him and disappeared around the same curve as the other bus, becoming shrouded by the trees.

”Hey! Richie!”

That was not the voice of Henry Bowers, and it wasn’t Greta either, unless she had undergone some drastic changes since high school. Richie turned around on the spot, slowly, with his brows puckered. A man raised a hand in the air and shuffled a weekend bag further up on his shoulder. He was smiling brightly and trotted towards Richie faster than Richie could comprehend what was going on.

” _Haystack?_ ” Richie blinked and pushed his head forward.

With sand colored hair that had darkened, a circle beard and clothes that radiated a rough charm, Ben Hanscom looked just like Richie remembered him — and it struck him like a lightning bolt that Richie had in fact seen Ben as an adult before, somewhere, somehow.

”Yeah, it’s me,” Ben laughed. He dropped his bag on the ground and pulled Richie in for a hug. He slapped him on the back and shook his head slowly, mouth hanging open in a baffled grin. ”Holy shit, I can’t believe it’s you. How weird is it that we meet right here? Did you know I was coming?” He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb, towards the bus stop.

”I didn’t know shit _._ ”

”It can’t be a coincidence, no way.”

”The fuck do I know?” Richie held his arms out from his body and let them fall back limply. ”It’s good to see you in person, all grown up and handsome. You were a lot uglier in middle school. That’s how I remembered you. Your cheeks have been haunting me.” Richie filled his cheeks with air like a blowfish and patted on the skin with his palms. He couldn’t think of any other way to greet his old friend. Acting all formal and polite didn’t seem right, not even after all these years.

”Yeah, I know, I know,” Ben chuckled. Then he shifted his weight from one leg to the other and asked, more seriously, ”So you’ve had some flashbacks too?”

”No kidding. I’m fucking exhausted.”

”Yeah, me too,” Ben sighed, ”See, I had this hallucination, I don’t know what else to call it. I was going to working, just sketching some ideas for a new mall they want to build in this tiny community in the midwest, nothing exciting, and when I brought out my folder I saw that all my sketches were all ruined — And can you believe this? — There was a _haiku poem_ written all over one of my papers! And, and —” Ben was laughing and freaking out at once. Each sentence was more erratic than the precedent. ”The first poem was about going home, rediscovering your roots and that stuff. I had never thought of that stuff before! _’Going home? Where is my home?’_ was all I could think. And ever since I’ve been finding new haikus _everywhere_. I don’t understand half of them, but I think they mean something and they symbolize things from my childhood here in Derry.” He gestured towards their surrounding with open hands.

Hearing him speak was a relief at the same time as it made Richie shiver. This marked the point where the past and the present became one unit, one coherent tale. It wasn’t just in his head anymore. Ben had experienced it too, the wraith that pulled them towards Derry — both at the same time.

”Do you think we’re the only ones here?” Ben asked after a brief pause. He looked around him and there was nostalgic shimmer all around him as his eyes drank the view, much like Richie had done just before.

”I hope so,” Richie replied. His face was comically bland, but there was no way he could express his anticipation. His body was restless and skippy, ready to run, ready to sing. The only way it manifested itself on the outside was the fidgety drumming he did with his fingers on the luggage’s handle.

On the inside Richie hoped with every cell in his body that he’d find Mike in the library, Stanley sitting at Uncle Sam’s, Bill swooshing by on Silver, Eddie waiting by the counter at the pharmacy, and Beverly trying on clothes at the thrift store. They had to be there. He couldn’t fathom a Derry without them. Now he wanted to run there to see them. He already had some fantastic roasts prepared that he’d throw at Stanley and Eddie once he saw them, stuff that he should have said years ago if he had had the chance to.

Despite his inner fuss, Richie and Ben started walking side by side towards downtown Derry.

Both of them laughed at their physical staleness, how theirs hipbones, spines and knees wouldn’t let them move properly these days. An entire day of traveling, sitting in encumbered spaces wasn’t as fun as it used to be when their bodies were youthful and had joints like jelly, they agreed.

They left the fields behind and followed the road through some woodlands. A brook slithered between the trees and fallen logs. The burning sky and the last sun rays peeped through the tree tops. Every now and then a car passed, but it was mostly quiet.

”I didn’t remember Maine being this beautiful,” Ben noted.

”Me neither. I only remember thinking that Derry was hell on Earth and everything sucked.”

”I wonder if it’s because _we_ have changed that we can see it now or if it’s because _Derry_ has changed since we left.”

Seeing Ben was such a familiar sight and emotionally Richie found that they were as connected as if they had never parted ways. Richie had only accessed small pieces of his childhood and there were major gaps in the timeline that made Ben seem like a picture with large, unrefined pixels and blurry edges — but it as an image that he was glad to have by his side. Richie realized now how awfully lonely he had been since leaving Derry, how he had missed having a real friend without even being aware of the fact that he didn’t have any.

”Did you graduate from that architecture program-thing that you did after high school?” Richie scratched his cheek, troubled by the fact that he didn’t know.

”I did,” Ben said. ”I’ve been an architect ever since. You became an actor, right? I think I saw you in that movie with the bulldog. I just didn’t realize it was you.”

”Don’t remind me, I beg you!” Richie whined, shielding his face with his free hand.

”It wasn’t too bad, come on!”

”You don’t have to be kind, Ben. It’s okay, I know it was shit. I’m happy I had my glory days, but those days are over. It’s just the way it is, right? Everything went downhill from 2016. Instant crash. It just came out of nowhere.” He gestured the dip with his hand, shrugging. ”But yes, I did some acting. Did standup for most the most part though.”

”It’s a harsh world,” Ben said empathically. He kept his eyes straight ahead and walked with large steps. The weekend back kept slipping off his shoulder and he adjusted the strap constantly as he told, ”I constructed the most incredible stuff in my twenties, thirties. Then I ran out of inspiration, it was sometime around 2016 too, I believe. 2017 maybe? Everything’s been a bit so-so ever since. I still earn a living but the miracle is over, it seems. You think it’s because of our age?” He laughed mirthlessly and turned his face to Richie. ”We’re officially not young anymore, are we?”

”I’m afraid so,” Richie sighed.

”Beverly became a fashion designer, didn’t she? I don’t know the name of her brand but it’s one of those that Vogue and Elle write about, and she made some celebrity’s gown for the Oscar’s. I think she mentioned that last time. I hope she’s still going strong.”

The greenery was just like in the Barrens, but the clubhouse was at opposite side of town. Richie glanced up to see if there were any birds in the tree tops. He wondered if Stanley had already arrived and was now enjoying some birdwatching while waiting for the rest of the Losers to join him. Distracted, he dwelled before answering Ben, but just as he was about to say ’ _No idea’_ , he stopped right in his track.

” _’Last time’?_ ” he blurted, ”So there _was_ a last time?”

”Wait, what did I say?” Ben wondered, dumb look on his face. ”Did I say ’last time’?”

”You sure did.”

”Oh. Sorry. ” Ben started walking again and Richie followed. ”I’m so tired,” he excused, ”Haven’t slept well in a while and I’ve been traveling all day. I guess I’m making no sense. Maybe I just read about her somewhere? Unless I’m mistaken about that too, of course. If I say something really random, please bare with me.”

”Don’t worry about it. If I randomly start dissociating or write things with lotion, that’s nothing to freak out about either.”

But Richie knew that it wasn’t a mistake on Ben’s part. They _had_ met before as adults. That’s how he knew that Eddie became a limousine driver and that’s why he recognized Ben right away. He decided to not bring it up now. Instead the two enjoyed chatting about what they had been up to lately and filled each other in about the things they didn’t remember. Now that Richie thought about it, he wasn’t surprised to hear that Beverly was a fashion designer either. It was partially because it totally made sense, Beverly was meant to work with fashion and run her own company, but also because she had specifically told him when they met at the Jade of the Orient restaurant.

Now Richie slapped his palm to his forehead and inhaled sharply. Ben gave him a worried look and started asking a bunch of ’you okay?’s, ’what’s going on?’s. He received no answer. The ground started swaying alarmingly, the tarmac seemed to melt beneath Richie’s feet and it without even being conscious of it himself, he knelt down on the street and put a hand on the ground to steady himself.

”The Jade of the Orient! For fucks sake, Haystack! The restaurant reunion!” he exclaimed.

***

**2016**

Bill coughed, red-faced and jerking violently. Mike dunked him in the back, laughing. Richie sat with his legs crossed beneath the table and his arms crossed over his chest, still telling the story nonchalantly, pretending not to even notice how his friends were about to keel over. Eddie was the only one who didn’t. He sat stiffly with his mouth pulled into a disgruntled arch, his eyes glaring at Richie.

”Alright, alright, why bring my mom into this? She has nothing to with it!” he hushed, ”Enough, Richie. Beep, beep.”

”Beep, beep on you, you boring piece of shit! Let me finish the story!” Richie held his palm up towards Eddie’s face and kept talking, even more encouraged than before.

Bill slapped his hand onto the table so that the cuticles and plates rattled. That’s when Ben told Richie to shut up before ’this bald old man gets a heart attack’. Bill gave him the finger in between the coughs. Richie raised his glass like a sire amongst the barbaric people that were his childhood friends.

”And that’s why you shouldn’t trust people who think living in the fucking desert is a good idea,” he concluded before bringing the glass to his lips.

He had had a couple of drinks already, and yet he was in better shape than both Bill and Beverly. Beverly’s laughter had transitioned from sweet giggles to braying like a donkey and clapping her hands like a seal. Now she couldn’t even pretend that she didn’t find Bill choking hilarious. Nobody was even offended by it, it just made the whole situation funnier. Mike and Eddie, on the other hand, were acting like sophisticated adults, sipping water in between the rounds of alcohols, and Ben — no kidding — was responsible for having emptied half of the bottle on his own and was still the most sober one out of all of them. Richie knew better than to ask how come that was possible. He was equally concerned as impressed.

”So, what do you think Stan’s been up to, then?” Eddie asked, wiping the corners of his mouth with a napkin before clasping his hands on the table.

”He’s probably running a bank or something,” Bill said. He stifled a cough and kept his voice steady. ”He was always good with numbers and structure and all of that. I think he’d be good at that stuff.”

”Yeah, and he’s jewish so handling monkey is sort of his thing, right?”

”Don’t say that, Richie, that’s racist!” Beverly interfered. Her voice was louder than usual, drunken and upset. At first Richie thought she was just messing around but then he realized that she wasn’t and it made him both confused and hurt.

”What do you mean? We’ve always joked about Stan being jewish, what’s the deal now?”

”It wasn’t right back then either!”

”Oh, come on!” Richie sighed dramatically. ”I’ll joke about Stan being jewish ’til the day I die! And I’ll joke about Eddie’s mom being fat until the day I die too! Then I’ll keep joking about it in hell with the devil himself! I’ll give Mike a pass, because not even I can bring myself to say the n-word anymore. That’s as far as my virtue goes.”

”Wow, I’m honored!” Mike exclaimed. He stretched his hand across the table and Richie shook it while his other hand was placed over his heart. He bowed his head venerably a couple of times and said something along the lines with ’anything for you milord’, until Mike pulled his hand back, laughing and rolling his eyes.

”Stan used to call all of us retarded so I don’t think he’d be too mad about it,” Richie said calmly. ”It was a different time. You could say whatever you wanted.”

”Yeah, but it wasn’t fucking right just because everyone did it…” Now Beverly sipped her drink with a sullen look on her face, a little pouty even, but it didn’t last for long. She wiped her mouth using the back of her hand. ”Anyway, I think Stan would make a great _anything_. He’s so smart and good-hearted. I’m sure he became whatever he wanted to become.”

”Wouldn’t he be perfect for engineering? Construct things, invent, find solution and stuff — that seems just like him! If not a banker, I’m sure he’s an engineer,” Eddie said confidently. He flailed a fork in the air. ”Or maybe something within dentistry! He’s got that _finesse_ with his fingers, you know?” He rubbed his index and middle finger against his thumb, eyes pressed into narrow shards.

If Richie hadn’t been so distracted, he would have made a joke about the hasty handjobs he and Stanley had exchanged years prior. Nobody knew anything about that, but it would have been hilarious to let them know now. Surely there was someone else at the table who had another amusing fact to tell and now that they were older and all of it happened so many years ago, maybe they wouldn’t even mind sharing it? Richie knew that was the type of conversation topics that most people didn’t dare initiate, but once you started talking about it everyone would get a good laugh and enjoy themselves.

But all of that was hypothetical because he couldn’t even bring himself to say anything. The words got caught in his throat and all he could think of was how the wedding ring that Eddie had worn when he came into the restaurant was no longer on his finger. It had left a subtile mark behind, indicating that it had once been there, but now it echoed with its vacancy.

”Well, I guess we’ll find out later,” Beverly shrugged.

There was a momentary silence in the chatter when everyone sat back and in unison turned their eyes towards the empty chair in between Eddie and Richie. The plate was untouched and the glass hadn’t been filled with anything, the napkin still tucked into it just like it had been when they been showed into the venue.

”Yeah, it’d be great if he could get his ass here before we die of age,” Richie mumbled at last.

Stanley’s absence was more conspicuous than the ring’s. You wouldn’t think that Stanley — who was usually not the center of attention, the loudest person in the group nor the one to whom your eyes naturally wandered if you saw him in a crowd — could leave such a horrid emptiness. The presence of his absence was the most conspicuous in the room.

”It’s not like him to be so late,” Bill said gravely.

”Maybe it was an issue with the traffic or something?”

That suggestion was what they clung onto. They nodded in unison and filled their glasses with more to drink. Richie remarked that they’d be passed out drunk or dancing on the table by the time Stanley arrived. To this they laughed, but it was a lukewarm laughter that had an anxious ting to it.

Of course, Stanley was stuck in the traffic, Richie told himself. It was the only possibility!

Stanley was stuck at an airport, glancing at his watch every two seconds, muttering about how the delayed flight, images of Derry flickering in his brain constantly, just like for the rest of them. He was soon going to arrive though, a little late but in good condition. His shirt buttoned all the way up, a cardigan on top and posture proper as ever. Maybe his hair wasn’t as thick and lively as it used to, but it was easy to imagine Stanley Uris as an adult since he had always been an adult in a way.

Richie couldn’t wait to meet him. Stanley would arrive soon. Once the airport fixed their issues, the traffic jam eased up or whatever was preventing him from joining them in Derry, but that couldn’t take too long, could it? Regardless, Stanley Uris was going to join them soon. And since this was a certainty, the rest of the Losers enjoyed their meal at the restaurant and didn’t fret too much about his absence. Maybe the alcohol played a part in it too.

**June 8th 2020**

Ben helped Richie up from the ground. The sky had turned purple at this point. It was growing darker for every minute but the street lights had not yet lit up. Richie’s knees were still a bit wobbly, but he managed to walk. He had lost the concept of time. He was confused by the fact that Ben was the only one there, and the fact that they were not at the restaurant. It took him another couple of minutes before it dawned on him that four years had passed, that it was 2020 and not 2016.

”So this is what you meant by zooming out?” Ben asked. He looked a bit sweaty too. Probably not used to it. He only found lame poems everywhere. Must be nice, Richie figured. Why did he have to get fucking seizures? Why couldn't he get some friendly messages on the phone reminding him of his childhood instead?

”Yeah, today has been fucking intense, man. I’ve lost count," he muttered.

They shuffled closer to downtown at a slower pace. Richie was too tired to say much. Ben spoke in short sentences every now and then, but without actually communicating anything. He commented on the birds, the weather, how weird it felt to be back. He received mere hums in response.

”Ben,” Richie said at last. His throat was dry but he swallowed anyway. They stopped walking and Richie met Ben’s eyes for the first time in a while. The sound of downtown Derry could be heard a bit further ahead, still muted but definitely there. ”You have to answer a question.”

”Eh, yeah, sure. What?”

”Stan did join us at the restaurant that day, didn’t he?”

Ben thought for a moment. At first he seemed confused by the question, which made sense since Richie was the one who had gained access to the memory. But then the look on his face changed. The confusion washed away and instead he became fussy.

”Oh shit,” he said, ”It was the Asian restaurant, right? We met there last time!"

Richie nodded. Ben stared blankly into the air in front of him. Richie gave him some time to think. 

”Well… I don’t remember him being there, but I suppose he joined us later?” Ben offered. Then he added, more confidently, ”I think he did. I’m pretty sure he did. _Very_ sure, actually. He told us to be brave and that we’d be losers forever. And I know he became an accountant."

”Yes, I remember that too.” Richie let out a sigh of relief.

”He must have told us at some point. Maybe he didn't show up at the restaurant, but even if he didn’t, that doesn’t have to mean much, right? Maybe he was just busy. I’m sure he’s got a lot of work and stuff, he’s got his shit together. Maybe he has a family too? There’s a lot of reasons why someone wouldn’t be able to attend a reunion in their hometown. I’m actually amazed that the rest of us managed to get there. It does seem a bit weird that we met only once in 2016 and never again after that. Maybe he missed the first reunion but came to the second? Do you remember a second reunion?"

"No."

"Me neither, but that doesn't mean that it didn't happen. I'm like ninety-nine percent sure that I've met Stan as an adult though."

With these words said, Ben and Richie let the issue go. It was foolish to overreact. It wasn’t the end of the world if Stanley didn’t get drunk with them that one time at the Jade of the Orient. Maybe it was for the better? He probably wouldn’t appreciate seeing his friends wasted and making a big scene. Unless he was stuck in the traffic on his way to Derry, he was probably chilling somewhere with a nice book, or out in the woods with his family to teach his kids about birds. If he did have kids Richie hoped that he could babysit them one day. He’d have a blast teaching Stanley’s kiddos how to swear and efficient methods to annoy their father.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a mini-chapter, but I didn't know how else to divide the story.
> 
> TW for implied alcoholism, mentions of weight/body issues!

**June 8th 2020**

Derry downtown had grown significantly. There were new stores along the streets, new restaurants and a flashy skateboard park had been built. Some adolescents were still hanging out there, cheering each other on and passing a bottle of coca cola back and fourth between themselves. Right next to them was the statue of Paul Bunyan, standing tall and proud as ever, unaware of its own staleness. Despite all, Richie was almost relieved to see the ugly creation. It was a mark that reminded him that it was indeed Derry. The library’s cupola was another mark. In the evening dark its rounded shape was merely a silhouette against the sky, high above everything else. It was delighting to see that it hadn’t changed the slightest.

”Wow,” Ben whistled. He stopped at the intersection and let the weekend bag slide off his shoulder. He stretched his arm and straighten his back, glanced both ways. ”I’d love to take a good look around, but let’s check in somewhere where we can leave our stuff first.”

Richie agreed and so they strolled up the street to find the old hotel. The broken street lights had been repaired. On the balconies above the stores and restaurants, flower arrangements contrasted beautifully against the facades. A family passed them and both Ben and Richie flinched back at the sight of the middle school-aged children walking with their noses only inches away from iPhone screens. Their faces were lit up with blue light. The daughter was giggling at a video, the son was texting at the speed of light, fingers tapping against the glass with insane precision.

Once the family had passed, Richie and Ben looked at each other but didn’t even need to say anything. _’We certainly didn’t have phones when we were their age’._ But saying that out loud would make them sound like they were way older than they actually were, and seeing how much Derry had changed made Richie self-conscious already. How old was he really? Eighty? A hundred? Two hundred?

Ben noted that Uncle Sam’s was still open, much to Richie’s relief. New tables had replaced the old, but they were still crammed together. A couple of additional tables were placed outside in a terrace-like space with a wooden fence around it and parasols placed to create a canvas roof. Some guests sat there, drinking wine, eating meals that were definitely more advanced than the grilled sandwiches that used to be listed at the old cafe menu.

”We can come back here for something to eat,” Ben said when he caught Richie slow down as they walked by.

”Yeah.” Richie chuckled and turned his face forward. ”This time we might actually enjoy the coffee for real.”

"I was never good at faking it, was I?"

"Nah. But Mike was the worst actor. I was the best."

"You diluted yours, that's cheating! You drank sugary milk with a tiny splash of coffee at the bottom!" Ben frowned.

 _If_ they had only decided to go inside, they would have seen that where the bookshelf used to be, now there was a large photography of The Beatles instead, and sitting by the table in that corner was a man with a computer who struggled to write. Most of the time he just looked blandly at the screen and sighed repeatedly. By the time Ben and Richie had dropped their bags off at the hotel, the man had left. All that was left behind was his empty plate. Ben moved it from the table to the tray without thinking anything in particular about it. Why would he? He couldn't know that it was Bill Benbrough who had left it there.

They sat down at the table beneath the photography of The Beatles. Richie’s knees ached and his eyelids had started to feel heavier. He kept rubbing his eyes by peeping his finger under the rim of his glasses. For some reason it didn’t feel right to wear contacts so he took them out at the hotel. Ben didn’t comment on it, he probably didn’t understand that it was a big deal since he couldn't know that Richie hadn’t worn glasses in ages.

”Well, it’s just the two of us, but whatever — cheers to the Losers!” Richie said and raised his glass once the waitress placed their orders down in front of them. He swiftly sipped the foam of the beer so that it wouldn’t spill over the edge.

”You know, I used to drink a lot before,” Ben said. He drank a mouthful of his beer and put it down again. ”It was back when my career was going great, but I don’t think I was ever happy now when I think back at it. Not _truly_. Then, after that meeting in 2016, I lost the urge to drink. I suppose I didn’t need it anymore. Sure, I’d have a beer every now and then, just like this, but I wouldn’t hang out at the bar on a Thursday by myself to get drunk. My career was crashing and all, but I’ve been happier since. I don’t remember the reunion, but something changed afterwards.”

The food arrived and they dug in. Richie had ordered a good ole grilled sandwich. The dressing was greasy and the sallad was literally just green lettuce. Regardless, Richie ate contently. Ben had ordered a tuna sallad, which consisted of lettuce, chunky pieces of tomato and cucumber, and canned tuna splashed on top along with a dressing that was so lemony Ben’s face contracted when he took the first bite.

”Uncle Sam’s, huh? Personally, I like it.”

”I’ve had better sallads in my life,” Ben admitted.

”Right, you got shredded! I didn’t want to bring it up, but now that you’re initiating it — First shredded, then sober! What is that?! How awfully inspiring! The fuck did I do? I’m still a useless piece of shit! Didn’t take my meds this morning and I haven’t even opened the vitamins the doctor prescribed me the other day!” Richie exclaimed. He let his hand fall flat on the table. ”Isn’t it tiring being so good? What’s the point?”

”Man, you try being the fat guy your whole life!” Ben laughed, patting the corner of his mouth with the napkin, ”Then you’ll think that eating sallads and jogging is the easiest way to go, I promise. It takes much longer to learn how to _accept_ that you’re the fat guy.”

Richie fell silent. He leaned back against the seat and crossed one leg over the other. He eyed Ben up and down. This man, his friend, was still so foreign. It wasn’t because he was older, had a beard and had lost some weight — it was Richie who had changed. This dawned on him like a bucket of water was thrown at his face, but he wasn’t sure whether it was a relief or an unpleasant shock.

”You don’t have to feel bad about it,” Ben said, as if he had managed to read Richie’s thoughts precisely. ”I don’t blame you or anyone else. I think we all had our insecurities. Joking was the easiest way to go for you in the end too, am I right?”

”Sorry, could we have two coffees?” Richie said over his shoulder when the waitress passed. She got a bit startled by his sudden question, but she nodded politely and squeezed past their table, mumbling something about that she’d bring it in a minute. When he turned back to Ben he had a happy grin on his face. ”Can you believe that we’re having coffee at Uncle Sam’s, man?!”

They stayed at the cafe — which was now also a restaurant — for as long as they could talk. When the exhaustion started catching up they decided to head back to the hotel. They had a lot to take care of, they both agreed, but they didn’t even know what exactly. For some reason they had been brought to Derry again. It couldn't be a coincidence. Ep

By 2am, just minutes after coming into the hotel room, Richie was already snoring. Three rooms away, Ben had found a new poem in his weekend bag and was seated on the bed with the postcard in his hands. Somehow he knew that he had written it many years ago, but it hadn’t been in his possession in many years and the poem had not been there in the morning when he packed the bag. And while he was pondering the meaning behind _’January embers’_ and what it could possibly symbolize, a cab slowly rolled up Kanas Street.

The car stopped and the door opened. A pair of pointed flats stepped out on the ground. Around the right ankle there was a chain with tiny charms that dangled when she moved. She thanked the driver, payed and grabbed her bag from the backseat. From Kansas Street she could see the tree tops in the Barrens behind the apartment building where the second hand store used to be. It saddened her that it was gone. She didn't know yet that the store was still operative, but it had moved to a different street and was now twice as big, filled with clothes, china, vintage records and boxes of jewelry that her younger self would have adored to rummage around in.

”Oh my,” Beverly Marsh said as a heavy exhale.

Then she started walking towards the Central Street where the hotel was located.


	15. Chapter 15

**June 9th 2020**

When Richie woke up in the morning he was puzzled by the sounds that he heard. Voices and cars sounded like they were right outside the window, but it wasn’t the chaotic noise that he associated with New York. It was too close, too personal. It wasn’t the constant simmer out of which you couldn’t even identify what you were hearing, the type of commotion that was fused into one single unit.

He staggered towards the window, brushed the curtains aside and peered out. He saw people walking by right beneath the window. He even heard what they were saying to one another. It was mostly casual _’good morning’_ s and some chatter about the day. Store clerks flipped the closed/open sign around, a woman struggled with a clothing rack that she was trying to lift out through the door. A large _’SALE 30% OFF’_ sign was attached to it. The sun was shining and it was overall a lovely morning. Kids who were enjoying their summer vacation hurried to and fro, gathering their groups of friends, eager to seize the day as if every minute mattered. Some rode on bikes or kicked around on skateboards. Aside from that they all had phones and modern clothes, they reminded Richie a lot of himself at that age.

There were just three floors in the building and Richie was on the second one. He had a small balcony and on the opposite side of the Central Street was the park. In the daylight he could see the skateboard park better and the lumberjack statue as well. Last night he had appreciated the statue, but now he crunched his nose at the sight. The statue left a feeling of distaste behind even when he let the curtain fall back to hide it. It struck him that not only did he dislike it — he in fact _hated_ that statue and it ruined the whole view. Is it arrogant to ask the hotel employees to get rid of it because it ruins the overall experience of the stay?

He switched on his phone to call Ben, but just as he was about to press his name in the contact list there was a knock on the door. If having a contact called Haystack in his phone wasn’t baffling enough, hearing Ben’s friendly voice say his name did the job. Richie remained standing by the nightstand, the phone in his hand, without being able to bring himself to open the door. Knowing that Ben was on the other side of the door was too surreal. Richie wouldn’t have been surprised if he found out that yesterday was just a flashback, that the dinner at Uncle Sam’s was just a hallucination and that Ben wasn’t actually here at all. Heck, maybe he was still in the hospital and none of this actually happened?

”You died in there, Rich?!” Ben called. He knocked again. The sound was real.

This time Richie opened the door. Ben stood outside clad in a plain T-shirt and jeans, looking so effortlessly cool that it was impossible to grasp that this was the chubby kid who once started weeping out of frustration because Richie refused to shut up. Now Richie had to collect himself in order to think past Ben’s coolness.

”I’m alive but barely,” he said blandly. He was still dressed in sweatpants and the dirty old tee that he liked to sleep in. His hair was messy and his glasses a little greasy.

”Bill is here,” Ben told him. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, not standing still for even a second. He glanced down the hotel corridor. He was smiling the whole time. ”No kidding! I was on my way down to the breakfast and when the elevator stopped and the doors opened, Bill was standing outside!”

”Big Bill?”

  
”No, Bill Gates!” Ben mocked. Richie blinked dumbly. Ben threw his hands up like a pastor. ”Of course, I meant Big Bill!”

Ben’s body language made it clear that nothing much had changed regarding Big Bill’s impact on him, and to be fair it hadn’t changed on Richie’s part either. It only took a moment of confusion until Richie’s brain managed to process the news. It was like a shot of sugar had been injected directly into his veins.

”Holy shit,” he gasped. He slammed his palm to his forehead and started cackling.

Resembling two puppies wagging their tails, they spent a brief moment celebrating the arrival of their childhood hero — and the most reckless moron they had ever encountered — while a another visitor passed through the hotel corridor behind Ben, frowning at their exhilarated behavior.

”He doesn’t have a stutter anymore!” Ben announced it like the greatest news he’d ever heard, palms open and eyes shut wide. Then he shrugged, but nonetheless cheerful, ”Okay, maybe a little bit, but nothing you’d notice right away. He seemed a bit tired, but he was glad to see me, and when I told him you were here too he laughed and asked if you were the one who had sent him an email saying _’Big Bill is the biggest whore in Maine’_ last week. I said that I didn’t know anything of that, but he’s waiting for us in the lobby.”

Richie thought for a second. He put a finger in the air, the other hand on his hip.

”You know what, I’ll be ready in five. See you downstairs, alright?” he said.

Then he hurried to get dressed but he put more effort into it that he did the previous day, solely for the reason that he was now going to walk around with Ben Handsome all day, and if Bill was anything like he used to be he was offensively hot too. Richie even struggled with the buttons on his shirt because his fingers were so fussy.

 _’This is ridiculous’_ , he thought to himself. _’They are my best friends!’_

But Richie remembered, not just that one time at the quarry when Bill almost gave him a heart attack, but so many instances when his sculpted shoulders and confident way of carrying himself made Richie flustered. It was the memory that made him nervous, not the thought of adult Bill Denbrough actually sitting in the lobby.

It was embarrassing to admit, but it consoled Richie to know that literally anyone who spent time around Bill — which frankly was only the Losers, but still — developed a crush on him. It was inevitable, it couldn’t be helped. It was something about the way Bill looked at you, or the way he smiled at you (which didn’t happen as often as you’d like it to, but when it did, it felt like the world was at peace and there were butterflies having a frolic in your belly) that made you weak.

If it hadn’t been for his charm, Bill would never had been able to get everyone to be so loyal to him. That was something Richie knew well enough. Even Stanley caved in sometimes, although he was too proud and sensible to admire Bill as resolutely as the rest. Each time he did, Stanley seemed to have calculated it carefully, deciding to let Bill have his way in a nonchalant _’fine, you can have it this time’_ kind of way. Richie also had a faint vision of Stanley yelling at Bill that he was crazy, but he wasn’t wherefrom that memory came from or if it was just his imagination.

Sometimes Richie had wondered if Bill used his unconventional charm on purpose and it used to make him furious. It didn’t seem to bother anybody else as much as it bothered him, but Richie always felt like he was being mocked or messed with when Bill did The Thing to him.

Richie didn’t send the email last week, but he did once scribble _’Big Bill is the biggest whore in Maine’_ on the back of Beverly’s notebook one day when they sat next to one another in science class. They both laughed so much that they got kicked out of the classroom, but it was worth it.

Beverly was the only one Richie had ever openly discussed the Bill-issue with, and she had agreed that Bill was a total slut without a moment of hesitation. Sure, she had laughed while she said it, but Richie was confident that she was actually a bit serious about it too. Maybe that was just his own interpretation though, since he so desperately wanted to have an excuse, something that explained why he felt the way he did about Bill. If it wasn’t just him, then it wasn’t too bad, was it?

” _’Big Bill is the biggest whore in Maine’_ ,” Richie mumbled to himself, tasting the words. He started chortling and said it over and over again. It made him feel like fifteen again. He was ready to leave the room, but he had to calm himself down first or else he’d scare the other guests.

He had not yet decided if he was going to admit or deny that he was the one who originally wrote it. It was many years ago and Ben said that Bill was laughing when he asked, so surely he wasn’t offended. For some reason Richie was still a bit abashed by it though. Normally, he wouldn’t be. He had called other people things way worse than ’the biggest whore in Maine’, but this involved Big Bill so it was slightly different.If Richie had known at the time, which had to be sometime during highschool, that his little quote would one day magically appear in Big Bill’s email inbox, perhaps he wouldn’t have been as happy to express himself.

Maybe he was still under Bill’s spell somehow?

Regardless, Richie was happy that it had been brought up again. He had forgotten about the scribble aeons ago, probably even before the amnesia hit him. It was such a small moment, it didn’t have much impact on his life so there was no reason for it to leave a mark on his memory. If Bill hadn’t received that mail now, Richie would never have thought of it again.

Beverly even doodled a stick figure version of Bill right next to the scribble, and she made sure to give it a huge dick that was almost bigger than the whole rest of the body and a lot more detailed. Oh, how precious it was. What a masterpiece! Richie wanted to have it framed, hang it on the wall so he could look at it every day. He wondered if Beverly still had the notebook, although he doubted that she did. Richie didn’t own any old items from his childhood. Somehow they had all disappeared out of his life — even his favorite flannel and his adored CDs! He would never donate something that he loved that much, but maybe his parents threw them out when he moved out of home? He had no idea. It was immensely disappointing that Beverly most likely didn’t have the drawing anymore. Almost more disappointing than the losing his flannel.

”Does Big Bill actually have a big dick?” Richie had asked Beverly when they were alone in the hallway. Everyone else was in class so it was all empty, and while they waited to get let back into the classroom they slumped down on the floor with their backs against the lockers. Secretly, they were both happy that they got kicked out. The lecture was painfully boring.

Richie hoped that the question sounded like he was teasing her, but he was genuinely curious. Not for any particular reason, of course. He was curious about anyone’s dick size, just to make sure that he wasn’t smaller than average or anything. Probably for the same reason as Beverly sometimes peeped down at her chest — just a quick check. Normal stuff, right?

”I mean, what’s big about him?” Richie let his head fall against the locker behind him. He rested his arms on top of his knees and looked at Beverly from the corner of his eye. ”Ben is like three times his body mass, and he’s not even the tallest anymore!”

”Why don’t you find out for yourself?” Beverly nudged him with her shoulder. ”I’m sure Bill wouldn’t mind.”

”Of course, he wouldn’t! He’d fuck anyone! I’m just asking to know if it’s worth it or not. I’m not going to waste my time, you know?”

Beverly clicked with her tongue and flicked a strand of hair out of her face. Richie waited for her to say something with anticipation that he tried to conceal by playing with his bracelets in a nonchalant manner. Her silence made him a bit nervous. He feared that she thought he was serious. Richie wouldn’t make a more on Bill. Never. He wasn’t even sure himself why he was asking.

”I don’t know if he's bigger than anyone else, but he is Big Bill. I think it’s his energy! He radiates an aura that makes you think he’s got a big dick, right? It makes you believe that he does,” Beverly laughed. Perhaps her answer was half-serious, half-joking, just like Richie’s question and their little masterpiece. Beverly picked the notebook up from the floor and admired their creation. ”This is beautiful, Richie. I always knew we were the artistic ones in the club,” she sighed dreamily.

”Oh yes. This is fucking Rembrandt right here,” he agreed. He stroke the outline of the stick-figure and its humongous dick with his finger, shaking his head slowly. ”Beautiful.”

He quickly got over the disappointment of that she didn’t give him a serious answer, but at the same time he knew that they’d never make fun of Bill without brushing it off as a joke. And Richie didn’t want to deep dive into any such conversations anyway. He was a virgin, which was embarrassing enough, and the fact that he wasn’t interested in hearing any details from the girls’ locker room made Beverly raise smug eyebrows at him. Stanley was still the only one who knew, but they didn’t talk about it. Ever.

”If Big Bill tends to get to you, you can practice rejecting him with him. I’ll be Bill, you just try to resist my sexiness, alright?” Richie said, and thereafter he did a freestyle imitation of Bill-The-Whore, faking a stutter as he delivered a graphic speech about his huge dick, all whilst keeping Bill’s characteristic stern face.

Beverly keeled over on the floor, holding her arms over her stomach, wheezing for air. She didn’t even care that the floor was dusty and that a dried chewing gum was smeared right next to her. Richie, who was very content with his impersonation, simply grinned.

”Ahh, that’s too bad, Marsh! You didn’t stand a chance!” he punched Beverly on the arm.

That’s when the science teacher stuck his head out through the door to hush at them. His eyes protruded so much that it looked like they were about to pop out of his skull, shut open and glaring. Veins were visible all over his temples and on the scant skin on his neck that peeped up from his shirt collar. His face was a deep burgundy color. Perhaps he didn’t enjoy Richie’s dirty talk to interfere with his lame photosynthesis.

”I would have let you come back in if you behaved, but if you’d rather miss this important lecture and fail the test, go ahead! Leave! Get out! Go home if you’d like, I don’t care! It’s your education, your future!” he had sneered, spitting saliva like a dog, wavering with his hand for them to leave.

And they did leave, but with difficulty since the teacher’s face only made them laugh more. Like two drunks they stumbled through the hallway and left the school building. Then they spent the rest of the afternoon smoking behind the Aladdin theater. Bill Denbrough being a whore became their favorite inside joke after that, but they never told anyone about it — least of all Big Bill, of course.

**June 9th 2020**

Richie flattened his shirt several times before reaching the breakfast salon. It had been fifteen minutes rather than five, but whatever. He couldn’t go down to face Bill while thinking about the impersonation he did all those years ago. It was still one of Richie’s best characters. Too bad nobody but Beverly got to see Bill-The-Whore.

When Richie met Ben yesterday he hadn’t even had the time to get nervous, Ben had just appeared without premonition and there was no time to think, but now the anticipation made his heart rush. Richie had an idea of what Bill looked like as an adult, but a while had passed since the gathering at the Jade of the Orient and it wasn’t fair to judge Bill by that memory, since he was intoxicated and also choking throughout half of it.

The breakfast salon was rather busy, but Derry’s local hotel was nothing in comparison to the massive hotels where Richie had frequently stayed in past. It was a cosy space with simple tapestry on the walls, a chandelier in the ceiling and grandma-esque table cloth draped over the round tables. A small buffet with two types of bread, some yoghurt, cereal and scrambled eggs was arranged along one of the walls. A window let the guests see Central Street outside.

Ben sat near the window and on the opposite side of the table was Bill. They looked up when Richie came into the salon, and Bill was quick onto his feet.

”Richie!” he said like a sigh of delight. First it seemed like he was going for a handshake, but then he pulled Richie in for a hug. He let go and eyed him up and down. ”How weird is — Man, how are you? — I heard you arrived yesterday. You must have missed me at Uncle Sam’s with like ten minutes or something!”

”Wait, hang on — for how long have you been here? You’ve been here all along?”

”No, no, not at all. Three days or something, that’s all. Come, take a seat!” Bill gestured towards the table and sat down on his chair. ”I can’t believe I’m here with with you guys.” He smiled one of those smile that would have made the Losers swoon back in the days.

Bill was in better shape than at the reunion at the Jade of the Orient. His face, despite some dark circles beneath his eyes, had a healthy color and his hair had grown back on the patches where it had once been so thin it made him look bald. It wasn’t hard to see that he was indeed Bill, but he didn’t stand out like he used to. When looking around the salon, Bill blended in like any other man, neither more handsome nor shabbier than anybody else. If anything, Ben was now the one one’s eyes would gravitate towards.

Richie went to get something to drink and eat before joining them. He couldn’t remember having stayed at the hotel before, but since he had apparently been back to Derry once as an adult, there was a fair chance that he had. All three of them watched the street through the window, absent in their own minds.

”I was originally going to leave yesterday. That was my plan,” Bill told them without turning his face away from the Central Street outside. He had descended into graveness and sipped his coffee slowly while watching the world through the glass window, looking just like one would imagine a writer or maybe a poet. ”But I couldn’t,” he said. ”Something told me to me stay for a bit longer. I had no idea you guys would show up, but I suppose some sort of force knew all along. Now it makes sense. Something wanted us to meet.”

”Bill? Ben? _Richie?_ Is it you?”

All of them turned around at once. Standing in the middle of the breakfast salon, staring at them with her red lips parted, wearing a green blouse with a ribbon detail at the collar, was their favorite girl in the entire world. When she saw their faces she smiled and hurried over.

”Beverly!” Ben exclaimed. He pushed his chair back so brusquely that it almost slammed into the back of the chair behind him. An old lady shot him a glare over her shoulder. Ben was already hugging Beverly and didn’t notice. ”Did you arrive just now? How are you? For how long have you been here?”

”Yesterday,” she said. She hugged both Bill and Richie and sat down at the fourth chair by their table, already ensconcing herself as a natural part of the group. She had her forearms and palms flat on the table, leaning forward. Her mouth opened and closed a couple of times as she rested her eyes on them. In the end, she pushed herself back against the seat and crossed her arms over her chest. ”This is not happening,” she declared firmly. ”Nope.”

”It is, Bev, it is!” Ben laughed.

”Nope. This is a dream.”

”Nah, more like a nightmare!” Richie interfered, his mouth full of bread. He swallowed and pointed at Ben with an angry finger. ”He’s so hot, it’s fucking scary!”

”That’s almost exactly what you said last time too,” Beverly noted, grinning. She reached for Richie’s coffee and sipped some. Her lips left red marks on the rim. ”Do you remember that?”

”Huh?” Richie snorted. ”I did?”

”Yeah, yeah, yeah!” Ben agreed. ”Now I remember that too! Outside the restaurant!”

”I don’t remember this.” Bill glanced back and fourth between them.

”You weren’t there,” Beverly said. ”Anyway —” She got up and headed over to the buffet. She prepared some cereal and a sandwich with cheese and marmalade, just like she liked them as a teenager. The other three watched her the whole time. She accidentally knocked a package of yogurt over so that it left a little puddle on the buffet table. ’Oops’, she mumbled but she didn’t clean it up. Over her shoulder she said, ” — Isn’t it weird that we don’t even remember what happened just four years ago? It’s understandable to forget parts of your childhood, but four years ago…? That’s not a lot.”

Now she slumped down on the seat again, her legs in a funny angle and her back sagged. It didn’t match with her fashionable clothes and makeup, but it matched with Richie’s memory of Beverly Marsh perfectly. The only thing missing now was a cigarette between her lips. It was bizarre how everything could be the same and yet not. And nothing could be the same unless they were all together.

”So, if the four of us are here, where’s Mike, Stan and Eds?” Richie inquired. He craned his neck to peer down Central Street, hoping to see them coming trudging towards them this same second.

”I went to the library to see if Mike was there, but he wasn’t. That was the first thing I did when I came here,” Bill said, ”As for Stan and Eddie, I don’t know. You haven’t heard anything from them lately, have you?”

”Me?” Richie pointed at himself, eyebrows raised. ”Not a word. That’s why I’m asking.”

Just as he had said it he questioned it himself. He thought about the bird in Central Park that had started the sequence of flashbacks, how it had felt like Stanley was personally looking at him through the eye of the bird, demanding him to recall everything he had lost to oblivion. Richie swallowed. He couldn’t help feeling like Stanley had actually contacted him that day. And he had heard Stanley’s voice so clearly when he sat on the bus and tried to draw a straight line in the notebook. In some paranormal way perhaps Stanley had talked to him after all, but it could just as well just be his imagination.

”Well, I’m sure they’ll show up eventually,” Ben reassured them, ”It’d be very strange to only gather us and leave the other three out of it. I hope it’s not a huge gathering though. I’d rather not run into Henry Bowers or Patrick Hockstetter while I’m here.”

”Or my father,” Beverly filled him in, eyes absently looking out the window.

They chatted about what they'd do if they met Bowers. Their morbid ideas made the other guests send them some alarmed glances, but since they laughed intermittently it was hard to tell that they were actually a bit serious about their plans. Laughter was a good way to ease the anxiety. At first they couldn't know that Henry Bowers wasn't a threat anymore, that he didn't lurk around in Derry, that he had yelled his last slur. They wouldn't bump into him since he was dead. It took a while before this dawned on them. Richie was the one who suddenly got a faint vision of Henry Bower's death a couple of years prior. He wasn't sure how, but the fear of meeting the old enemy waned after that. One minute you're alive, the next you're dead. One minute you're afraid, the next you're not.

"So, let's head out! Sitting here all day is a waste! We have to find the three remaining Losers!" Richie declared.

And he still firmly believed that that they were about to be reunited. He wasn't even afraid of the potential that they wouldn't.


	16. Chapter 16

**June 9th 2020**  
  
”I want to see what my old home looks like,” Richie said.

They were standing in the park next to the lumberjack statue of Paul Bunyan. Richie stepped around on the spot, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, unable to fix his attention at anything in particular. His friends didn’t seem to mind it at all. Beverly had even suggested staying to have some ice cream, but that was more than Richie was willing to cope with. Paul Bunyan’s eyes appeared to follow him everywhere he went, malicious and cold. It was only to check out the skatepark that Richie had agreed to let Beverly drag them there in the first place, and Richie didn’t intend to stay for a second longer than he needed to.

”Yeah, me too. Let’s meet up outside the middle school entrance around lunch, alright? That should be enough time. I don’t think there is much to see that we can relate to anymore. This town is barely even Derry anymore!” Ben frowned. He sounded a bit disappointed but did his best to keep a cheerful tone.

It wasn’t just how the town had grown that made it feel foreign. It was the air, the merry ambience, the people. Richie had noticed too. Some landmarks was all that was left of the Derry that they knew, and the nebulous memories. Richie couldn’t even recall that Derry had changed this much last time, in 2016. The transformation must have happened in a matter of four years, which despite how nice everything was, was a bit alarming. Cities normally didn’t change that much in such short time.

”I don’t want to go alone,” Beverly said quietly. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans and the glanced anxiously towards the neighborhood where she used to live in a shabby apartment with her father. The neighborhood looked cleaner now, but for anyone who lived in Derry back in the days, that apartment block was associated with weirdos and poverty.

”I’ve already been back home so I can go with you,” Bill offered, ”If you don’t mind?”

Before Beverly had answered him, Ben inflicted:

”Actually I can come along too. It’s alright. I’m not sure I want to see what my old home has become. I’d rather remember it the way it was when I lived there.” He spoke very quickly and nodded an unnatural lot. Then he itched his neck and shot Bill a look which Bill responded to with a shrug and a subtile sigh.

At this point Richie couldn’t even stand watching anymore. He had already witnessed enough. He rolled his eyes and said goodbye to the rest with a sloppy hand flick. He stomped away from the scene with large steps. They had not even spent more than two hours together and they were already acting just like the stupid, hormonal teenagers.

Maybe adults are actually just old teenagers on the inside? Teenagers who are forced to pretend to know what they’re doing? Reasonable theory, Richie thought unhappily. Now he hoped for Stanley, Mike and Eddie’s arrival even more. If he was going to be some kind of useless fourth-wheel to their love triangle, he could just as well throw himself in the Kenduskeag or book a flight to that idyllic island in the Pacific that he had originally planned to migrate to before all of this happened.

**June 9th 2020**

His old home had honestly not changed as much as he had expected it to. The garage roof had been fixed and the facade was now a fresh white, but there were still roses growing outside the kitchen window and the house had the same shape as Richie remembered it. A tiny, pink bike laid on the lawn amongst some soccer balls and a beach tennis rack.

Carefully, he approached. There were no sounds nor movements and there was no car parked outside. Richie knocked on the door, hesitantly at first and then louder. He barely dared to breathe while he waited outside. Some part of him expected his mom to open, still young and healthy, with her hair in bun and a towel over her shoulder.

”Richie! After all these years! I’m glad you’re home!” he could imagine her say with her soft, motherly voice.

Nobody opened. That was at least better than if someone had flung the door open and hissed at him to get off their property. If they had, Richie knew himself well enough to know that he’d start arguing and get into trouble. _’It’s my damn house!’_ he’d yell and force himself in through the door. Luckily, he wouldn’t have to do that now, but he was also disappointed since this meant that he wouldn’t be able to go upstairs to see his room. Maybe Ben had a point though, maybe it was better to not see how they had changed it? He’d get disappointed if someone had destroyed what used to be his.

He walked up to the kitchen window and leaned forward, avoiding the thorns of the roses the best he could. The kitchen had been modernized, the table and the chairs replaced by fashionable white things, a smoothie blender standing where the bread basket always stood on the counter. Richie wondered if they stored tea inside the cabinets, if they ever spread a linen cloth over the table.

With his nose and forehead almost pressed against the window glass, Richie felt so close to the memory of him and Stanley eating bread and drinking tea in there. That was one of his favorite memories so far. _’For science!’_. It made him chortle just thinking about it. He was already plotting how he could remind Stanley about their little experiment without making it awkward. But even if it was awkward, Richie decided that it was necessary to bring it up because it was too hilarious to not acknowledge that it happened.

Richie settled that the new kitchen was convenient and cool, but it lacked the cozy soul of the kitchen he had grown up with. Only a handful of children’s drawings indicated that real people actually lived in there. They sat on a white fridge with metallic magnets. Everything else was so perfect that it looked like one of the inspirational arrangements at IKEA, rooms that only existed for the eye.

 _’I never want my home to look like this,’_ Richie thought to himself, but then it struck him that he barely even had a home. His home was wherever the production crew wanted him to be. Every stay was temporary and impersonal — a job. Richie had never invited anyone over, never decided the color on the walls, never had an opportunity to make a place his very own.

It weighed him down that the vision of his own kitchen was now just a memory. The new family probably didn’t even know that the kitchen had once belonged to him, that he had spent countless of mornings and evenings there, that the kitchen had witnessed him and his friends growing up in the 80’s and 90’s. They didn’t know that how much they had laughed in there, nor did they know how they had cried in there. Richie didn’t think much of the kitchen when he was younger, but he did spend a lot of time there. A substantial part of his life happened there. The kitchen was like a stage, the scenery, the background of almost every morning and every evening of his life, until he moved away 1994. And strangely enough, it was as if everything that had let up to that point were seconds being counted, sand slipping away in an hourglass.

Maggie Tozier was working on an embroidery, sitting on the chair closest to the window, when that reality hit her. Reality, on that particular morning 1994, was actually the mailman who slipped some envelopes and a commercial flyer into their mailbox.

He waved politely to Maggie and kicked off on his bike, whistling a jolly melody. Maggie dropped her embroidery and hurried out to the mailbox at once, her feet sloppily stuck into a pair of slipper, her heart caught in her throat. _Today is the day._ She could sense it. That day was the day that the acceptance letter had been dropped into their mailbox, and that meant that the days they had left as one united family were almost over.

She doubted that he’d ever move back home again once he had moved out. Once he moved away, he’d stay away. He never liked Derry much, Richie. He didn’t complain much around his parents, but she noticed how he kept his distance from everything that was Derry, how he built his own world with those odd friends he always went out to see.

”Oh, how dreadful,” she whined.

She had run out of tears before Richie made it back to Derry. When she welcomed him home she did so with a smile and she listened tenderly to him explaining how the bus somehow lost a wheel before making it out of Bangor, without questioning him a single time. She didn’t sneer that he might wear out his tongue since he talked so much either. Her maternal heart desperately grasped for the words he offered her, and this time she saved every single one of them in a special pocket in her chest.

”Well, I’m glad you’re home,” she sighed when he was done, ”because something came in the mail today.”

Then she handed him the letter. She had considered burning it, and if Richie asked about it, she’d simply say that maybe the school decided to not send letters to those who didn’t get accepted, or maybe the letter got lost on its way to Derry — but if he found out that she intentionally kept it away from him, he’d never forgive her. Then he would never even let her visit him, wherever he decided to live his life.

Later that night Maggie fell asleep on a soaked pillow, but in the morning she was as happy as ever again. She baked bread and had breakfast with Richie before he headed to work. They rarely ate breakfast together before, but now that it had dawned on her that she wouldn’t be able to do it soon, it suddenly became her top priority. They sat in the kitchen every morning for about fifteen minutes. That was a hundred and five minutes a week.

And at night, no matter how late he came home from work, she ate dinner with him and listened to his crazy stories about why the bus didn’t leave on time — at least she did on the days when she remembered that she had a son, but the fact that she sometimes forgot about his existence was something she was wholly unaware of.

If it wasn’t a demonic cat or that the bus lost a wheel, then it was because there was an earthquake, a tree that fell over the road, an explosion or a group of pigeons attacking him every time he tried to make it back home to Derry. She suspected that the real reason was because he had a girlfriend in Bangor, but she didn’t force him to talk about it. He always got nervous and fussy when she, or his father, brought it up. Sometimes he’d just leave. He was much shyer than he pretended to be, Richie. Asking him if he had a girlfriend made him red-faced and upset. Maggie would sometimes slip a condom or two into his backpack, hoping that he’d find them if he needed them, but she never found out whether or not he did.

This went on the whole summer. Maggie never let Richie know how she feared that this was the end of her own motherhood. What are mothers needed for when their kids are far away at a collage, taking care of themselves and becoming independent? Maggie couldn’t imagine herself being anything but a mother.

Richie sat at one side of the kitchen table when he opened the dreadful letter — the thing that was the start of everything, and also the end. It was evening and outside the window the roses had grown buds that were on the cusp of unfurling their red petals.

Maggie and Wentworth sat on the other side, watching him. His mother had her hands tightly clasped, her lower lip trembling. His father treated the opening ceremonially, showing no emotions but paying attention closely. Richie could barely open the letter because his hands were so shaky. He held his breath as he slipped the pepper out of the envelope and time stood still as he read.

”Oh fuck!” he gasped, slapping a hand to his forehead. He looked up at his parents. ”I —” He took a deep breath. ”I got in.”

As he said it the corners of his mouths pulled upwards and next he roared so loudly that his father winced back in surprise. Richie held the letter in the air and danced around the kitchen. For some incoherent reason he felt the need to sing the Soviet national anthem, but while he was at it he accidentally turned it into a Whitney Houston remix. He couldn’t sing very well, but his Maggie laughed warmly and she unclasped her hands. Her heart broke, and then it healed again. And then it broke. And healed. And broke. Euphoria and despair. She learned that a mother’s heart was a very powerful thing that summer, more durable than metals and leather boots.

”Don’t cheer too soon, son,” Wentworth told him. He left the table and started walking towards the living room, where the sport news were airing at this hour. Casually, just before disappearing out of sight, he grumbled, ”Getting in is the easy part. Making it through and getting the diploma is the real challenge. I hope you take this seriously because your education is not for free, you know?”

Wentworth Tozier never let Richie know that he shed a tear for him once Richie had left the house to tell all of his friends. He was so proud that his son had found a calling, a purpose that was bigger than getting into trouble and fooling around. He let Richie leave Derry still believing that his father wasn’t proud of him, but although Wentworth was a true man of his era, he cared for his son — at least he did when he could see him, but it wasn’t really his fault that the children of Derry sometimes became transparent and vanished right before their parents eyes.

Stanley Uris, however, didn’t let Richie leave without telling him everything he was important. When Richie, twenty-six years later, stood outside the kitchen window and thought about the whole thing, it occurred to him how Stanley had spilled all his thoughts as if he had _known_ that it was the last time they’d see each other in a while. A very long while.

**July 28th 1994**

Stanley stood on the threshold so still that it seemed like he was petrified on the spot. His eyes were blank and they appeared to be deeper set than usual. His mouth was neither happy nor sad, it was just a line. The button up was improperly tucked into his pants.

”Hi,” he said. His voice was just a squeak.

”Hi,” Richie replied. ”Come in, or are you planning on standing there all day?”

Now Stanley slipped into the room, soundlessly. He sat down on the bed and clasped his hands on his lap in one smooth movement. His eyes flickered back and forth amid the cardboard boxes on the floor, the luggage that was spread open and stuffed with some many things that it probably couldn’t even be closed, and Richie who was rummaging around in his closet.

”So, what’s up?” Richie asked without looking up. He pushed some batik shirts aside to access his sweaters that he stored in the back of the closet during the warmer months.

”Nothing, I suppose,” Stanley said curtly.

”No? Sounds boring to me.” Richie grabbed his favorite sweater and pulled it out with some difficulty. It was the green one with the platypus on it that he had bought at a garage sale two winters ago. The platypus was so poorly made that it barely resembled like one, but Richie always grinned when he looked at it. ”Do you think it’s a waste of space to bring sweaters to LA? Does it ever get cold there?” he asked.

”What do I know?”

”A lot, dude. Come on, now. What’s going on? What’s wrong?” Richie tossed the sweater onto a chair and turned to Stanley. Richie eyed him up and down and Stanley met his gaze only for a brief second before turning it away again. This time his eyes landed on the cardboard box with ’BE CAREFUL WITH THIS ONE FOR FUCKS SAKE’ scribbled on the side.

”When do you leave tomorrow?” Stanley wet his lips and turned his face down at his feet. His breaths were short and inconsistent. Sometimes his exhales were deep sighs, then he didn’t exhale at all for an unnatural amount of time. He inhaled too hastily, or else not at all.

”Ten o’clock if everything goes alright, but I’m never on time so it’s probably going to be eleven or twelve before I make it out of Derry. If mom lets me go. She’s been clingy as fuck lately.”

Richie put his hand into his pockets and swallowed. He stood in the middle of the room, and now it dawned on him that he was surrounded by the shatters of his childhood and that this marked the end of it. Stanley had of course already realized that. His mere presence reminded Richie of it, although he just sat there at the edge of the bed in silence.

Seeing Stanley like this made him question everything. What if California wasn’t like he thought? What if film school was just bullshit? What if he didn’t have what it’d take? He had only thought about where he was going, but not what he was leaving behind. This was strange, because normally he’d always think of his friends first. It was almost like the idea of leaving Derry had corrupted his mind and blinded him with its allure.

”This isn’t the end, you know?” Richie said quietly. ”Not of our friendship, only of this era. We’ll be friends even if we don’t see each other every day. I won’t stop bothering you just because I’m on the west coast, you know?” He chuckled but it didn’t help. The air was so thick that you could cut right through it with a knife.

Stanley rubbed his eyes with his index finger and thumb. Then he looked up at Richie, his eyes pools of deep grey and woe. It only lasted for a moment, then he broke the eye contact and cussed under his breath. He sighed and pulled his legs closer until he sat like a cowered ball, his elbows on his knees and his face hidden in his palms.

”I’m not going to cry,” he decreed in a muffled voice.

”It’s okay though. But I’ll say it again — this is not the _end_ , Stan.” Richie sat down next to him. The mattress yielded under his weight. From this distance he could see that wet drops trickled from Stanley’s palms, down his forearms. Richie keeled to the side and let his head rest on his friend’s shoulder. Stanley still didn’t remove his hands from his face, he didn’t even flinch at the touch. ”Come on, dude. There are phones, there’s postcards, holidays and flights. You could come visit me! And I’ll come back to visit you! And I doubt that you’ll stay here for very long. Soon you’ll head off to study at fucking Harvard or something! You won’t sit around here all your life like a miserable sucker, you’re too good for that, and you know it!”

Now Stanley turned to him and Richie lifted his head off his shoulder. He adjusted his glasses. Stanley just looked at him. It was impossible to know what he was thinking, and he refused to say anything. His face was perfectly impassive, aside from the fact that tears still whelmed over his lower lash line. Then he shook his head and the muscles around his eyes and mouth crumbled. He covered his face again.

”Nothing will ever be the same!” he hissed, ”I’ll be alone here, then I’ll be alone at some useless school where I’ll study useless things so that I can become another useless member of society! What’s the point of any of this?! I just want everything to remain the way it has always been!”

”But Mike’s still here, and Beverly! And I’ll be back for Thanksgiving. I _promise_!”

”Do you remember that Bill said that he’d be visit often? How many times exactly has Bill been back to Derry since moving?”

Richie had to choke down his own tears. _Zero_. He had been back _zero_ times. And Ben hadn’t been back either. And Eddie had almost died in a car crash when he came to visit.

He never told his mom that he was visiting Derry, so it was Richie who had to pick him up at the police station. He almost got arrested for driving under the influence when the officers found out how many types of medications he were on, but when they read on the packages and realized that the pills didn’t contain anything they let him go with a frown. Eddie was badly shaken though. There was no snow and ice, and yet he explained how the car had started sliding off the road and into the ditch. He didn’t believe any of Richie’s stories about how he struggled to go home from Bangor until that moment. Something tried to keep the Losers out of Derry, it seemed. Eddie hadn’t tried to visit since that time.

”Maybe they’re busy?” Richie suggested half-heartedly. ”They’ll come back eventually. And so will I.”

The last part he was confident about. He wanted to come back. Richie looked up at the ceiling and blinked rapidly. All he could think about were all the sweet times they had shared in Derry, and for the first time he actually felt nostalgic about the ugly places and the annoying people. Even the memory of all the times they had run away from Henry Bowers made him sniff. He couldn’t let all of that go forever. Even if he hated Derry, it was a part of him. He couldn’t pretend otherwise any more than he could pretend that he wasn’t messy and terrible at keeping deadlines. He didn’t love everything about himself, but if he neglected all those things then he’d only be half a person left. He had to accept Derry as a part of him.

”You don’t actually think I hate you, do you, Rich?” Stanley said. Now his voice was steadier and he revealed his streaky face. The bluntness made Richie push his neck out, shrugging his head. He wasn’t sure if he had heard Stanley right.

”Huh?” he snorted, puckering his eyebrows.

”You’re funny. And when I roll my eyes at you and call you stupid, that’s because I’m trying to be funny. Get it?”

”Dude, now you’re changing the subject.”

”No, I’m not.” Stanley straightened his back and took a deep breath. ”I’m telling you this now because I don’t want you to go to the other side of the country doubting whether I like you or not. I think you’re a genius, and that’s not just because you have better grades than me.”

”Ehm —” Richie scratched his cheek. ” — Thanks, I guess. But I never thought you hated me. Not after all these years. And you wouldn’t have — you know, yeah, whatever — if you thought I was the grossest fucking person on earth, would you?”

”Probably not,” Stanley admitted. He brushed some curls out of his face. ”But still. I don’t think I’ve said it out loud.”

”That you don’t hate me?”

”That I really like you.” Stanley smiled a hesitantly. ”I don’t mean it as in that I _like-like_ you, but because you’re my best friend and I’m very happy that I’ve had you this whole time. I want you to know.”

”You still have me. Stop talking like this is the end, you dramatic son of a bitch. I’m going away to study, that’s all. You seriously think that every time someone goes to college they suddenly start hating all of their friends, or what?”

Richie stood up and started picking items around the room again. Stanley still sat in a rather fixed position, but not in a conspicuous way. That’s just how he usually sat. His eyes were a little puffy and his face flushed red, but he smiled and had started to breathe normally again.

”I don’t think my jokes would have been half as funny if you didn’t contribute with your comebacks,” Richie said as he dropped another shirt on the bulging pile in the suitcase. ”We make a good comedic duo.”

”Sure, we do,” Stanley agreed in a cheeky tone.

”I’m not sure if anybody else appreciates our humor though.”

”They don’t need to. We appreciate our own humor, that’s enough.”

Stanley stayed with Richie while he packed for the rest of the afternoon. As usual he was doing everything in the last minute, as his brain couldn’t even process the existence of a deadline. Stanley helped him organize his things and he made a convenient list where he could check off everything he added to the boxes and the luggage. Stanley also informed him that he’d probably need more than five pairs of boxers and two pairs of socks since Richie wasn’t exactly known for his adoration of doing the laundry.

On the surface they acted more or less like usual, but Richie seized every minute like it was the last chance he’d ever get. He kept telling Stanley that it wasn’t the end, but he was actually telling himself just as much. He couldn’t pinpoint where this fear came from, but when he thought about how he had forgotten to say goodbye to his friends properly because he was so caught up in his future ambitions, it struck him as obscure. Something was forcing them apart. Maybe It was time, maybe It was fate. Whatever _It_ was, it didn’t want them to be together forever.

Richie told himself once last time that it wasn’t the end, that he’d fight back against that force, that he would not let his friends go just because he moved out of Derry, but he still choose to write a note that he slipped into the Uris family’s mailbox when he drove out of town the following day.

_’You’re the best friend I could have asked for. Thank you for everything so far. Take care. See you soon. /Richie’_


	17. Chapter 17

**June 9th 2020**

Ben, Bill and Beverly waited outside the middle school building as they had agreed to. Beverly looked a bit shaky, but Richie guessed that he looked even worse. The other three overwhelmed him with _’what happened?_ ’s and urged him to tell them if he had seen anything weird. Richie just shrugged and shook his head.

”Still no signs of Stan?” was the only thing he said. ”Or Eddie? Or Mike?”

No, they told him.

They walked around the middle school building in silence. Through the windows they could see some lockers and desks, but the hallways were mostly empty. Only some teachers that they didn’t recognize strolled around inside.

Beverly had to stand on her toes to peer in. She smiled from time to time, and then the corners of her mouth drooped again at the sight of something else. It was understandable that conflicted feelings roused upon seeing the old school. They didn’t even need to talk about it to know. Ben communicated solely by sighing — nostalgic sigh, sad sigh, annoyed sigh, happy sigh… Quite impressive actually.

Richie was so drained at this point that he doubted he could handle another round of sentimental flashbacks, and in this moment he couldn’t think of anything but what had struck him when he peered in through the kitchen window. He was still a bit disappointed that he couldn’t go inside. He wanted to see if the things he had written on the inside of the closet in his bedroom were still there and if the stairs still creaked. Richie tried to shrug it off, tried to tell himself that it was for the better. Still, he couldn’t care much about the middle school building. He couldn’t produce more emotions at this point.

”My b-broth-her died when we were in m-middle school,” Bill suddenly said. He stopped abruptly and put a hand against the wall. He leaned on the hand with all his weight and his head hung limply from his neck. It looked like he was about to keel over, collapse at the spot. ”Fuck,” he groaned and covered his face with his free hand.

”Sorry?” Beverly stepped closer. ”Are you okay?”

”He d-died ’88.”

”You had a brother?” Ben inquired. He had a crease across his forehead and he looked at Bill with a mix of concern and doubt. When Bill didn’t answer, he turned to Beverly and Richie. Richie simply shook his head. _No idea_. Beverly mumbled something incoherent out about Bill’s brother (”His name was James, right?”), but she made no sense. In the end she fell silent and she stepped back from Bill. She closed her hand against her chest.

”I’m sorry,” she said.

”You forgot. All of you,” Bill said blankly. ”And I did too.”

Richie only remember it vaguely, but he soon realized that it wasn’t because he thought of Georgie Denbrough himself, but because a flashback that he had had once already resurfaced again. It was the flashback that had hit him when he had found the message written on the mirror, the one that reminded him of the November afternoon at Uncle Sam’s when Stan went crazy. They talked about Georgie that day.

”Not even you remembered him until _now_?” he blurted.

Richie couldn’t help but find that forgetting the existence of your own brother was by far more concerning than forgetting that you once got horny when your friend applied sunscreen on your other friend. He didn’t mean to sound accusing but Beverly shot him a disapproving glare that made him shut up. Perhaps that wasn’t what Bill needed to hear now. And to be fair, it was alarming how Richie had managed to forget about Georgie — not just once, but twice — and in a matter of two days the latter time. Georgie was fresh in his memory for about two seconds, then he faded away just like he did after his death.

Bill didn’t even reply. Now he squatted down, his hand still against the wall. With the other he massaged his forehead. His eyes were squeezed together tightly. Richie, Beverly and Ben looked at one another, then back at Bill, then back at one another, unsure of what to do. Luckily, there wasn’t a lot of people around. They were well hidden behind the middle school’s western angle, where there was no reason for people to walk unless they were heading towards the gym which was located just down the slope.

”He’s probably having one of those visions I’ve been having,” Richie murmured to the other two. ”It’ll pass. Talking to him is probably no use now, he’s not even here mentally.” He tapped at his temple with a finger. Then he dug out a cigarette from his pocket and started smoking it nervously. Beverly snatched it away from him and took a drag too before handing it back to him, her eyes locked on Bill the whole time.

”I _am_ still h-here,” Bill hissed. It sounded like he was in physical pain, like his jaws were clenched shut and he wanted to crawl out of his own skin. With difficulty, he managed to stand up. He still leaned against the wall and his eyes only opened momentarily. ”G-geor-ghie was his n-name. He was f-five years young-gher. Died Oc-october ’88.”

Beverly approached him again, tentatively. Richie was honestly on edge, prepared to hurl himself towards to pull her back, just in case Bill was possessed and was about to hurt her or something. This time she placed her hand on his shoulder. Bill didn’t even seem to notice. Now he leaned his forehead against the wall and started beating it when both fists. As he did it he chanted repeatedly _’He thrusts his fists against the post and insists that he sees the ghost_ ’, each time with new variations of stuttering.

”His stutter’s back,” Ben noted.

”No shit, Sherlock,” Richie replied and blew out a puff of smoke.

He tapped anxiously with his foot. He figured that staying away and giving Bill a minute was the best thing he could do. He’d probably just make it worse if he meddled with whatever Bill was going through. At least he was lucky that he wasn’t the one who had forgotten about a loved one’s death. Richie would be out of his mind if he found out that he lost someone many years ago and never even had the chance to mourn properly because he didn’t even remember their existence. He couldn’t blame Bill for freaking out.

”G-Go to the l-locker room, Richie!” Bill grunted in between his chanting.

Beverly tried to get a hold of his fists so that he couldn’t slam them against the wall. She glimpsed in Richie and Ben’s direction, pleadingly, but when they rushed in to help her she pushed Richie back so fiercely that he stumbled backwards. That’s when he saw how Bill’s knuckles were bleeding and that he had left a bloody mess on the school building’s beige facade. Not even Ben could stop him for hitting the wall despite being both taller and fitter. Beverly grabbed one of Bill’s arms and turned to Richie over her shoulder.

”Go to the damn locker room!” she ordered impatiently. ”And hurry!”

”The fuck am I supposed to do there?!” Richie complained, stretching his arms out.

”JUST GO!”

Richie wasn’t going to argue with her. He knew that he could never win that fight, and to be honest he was relieved to have an excuse to leave. He was of no use anyway and he decided that seeing your friend possessed was worse than being possessed. There was no other explanation than that Bill was having flashbacks or visions or something of that nature. Richie calmed himself with the knowledge that at least it wasn’t painful to get visions. Bill was going to be okay.

The slope from the middle school’s backside to the gym and the locker rooms was quite steep. In the winters when the slope was covered in snow and ice it was a popular activity amongst the students to slide down on your butt, but it was impossible to trudge uphill so on the way back to the main building you had to take the route around the whole block. Now the slope was covered in grass and some wildflowers that sprouted in tiny clusters.

The boy’s locker room was just around the corner, shrouded from this angle by a large oak. Bill’s chanting could still be heard faintly and it had now started to dawn on Richie that perhaps the reason why he was sent to the locker rooms wasn’t just to get out of the way. His heart had started to pick up the pace again. He took a last drag off the cigarette and tossed it away. He slowed down and investigated the area carefully before moving closer. He had now reached flat ground.

There was a slim trail curving around the middle school that continued into a running track in the nature surrounding it. A group of kids, possibly middle schoolers enjoying their summer vacation but they could have been even younger, were running around on the amid the trees. They flailed with sticks in their hands, fencing like pirates, yelling and throwing themselves on the ground with dramatic groans when someone thrusted their stick in between the arm and the torso. Two boys were hiding behind a trunk, giggling as the others ran past them without noticing. It was a cute scene, but this place radiated a ghastly energy.

Richie hesitated when he stood right outside the boys’ locker room. This was not a good place. He had literally no positive memories or associations with the locker rooms, going in there could only mean trouble. He didn’t want another flashback, especially not at the same time as Bill was going insane. Ben and Beverly wouldn’t be able to save them both if something drastic happened, and the other three were still nowhere to be found.

 _’Maybe it was better to wait until we’re were all united?’_ Richie thought.

Eddie knew lots about medicine, Stanley was rational and good at coming up with solutions, and Mike’s presence itself had the power to keep everyone sane and friendly with one another so that they didn’t end up killing each other. Everyone in the former Losers Club had a purpose and they were stronger when they were all together.

_Maybe it’s better to just stay at the hotel until we are all united and then explore Derry as one clique? We’ll probably get mistaken for a cult — being a group of middle aged folks sneaking around in the bushes, investigating places, talking about paranormal poems, visions and shit. And chanting riddles about seeing ghosts. But whatever. That way we can help each other if something happens._

But then he heard Bill’s chanting at the top of the hill and it was apparent that he couldn’t wait. For some reason Bill wanted him to go to the locker rooms. Richie was quite proud of his internal reasoning, his argument made sense, and yet he knew that he had to go anyway.

Richie hadn’t even touched the door handle yet, but he could already feel the ground swaying. He contemplated just running away from it, postponing this memory until he felt ready, but then again — did one ever get ready to remember their childhood trauma? On the other hand, it was probably about him checking out the boys and feeling guilty about it back in middle school. How bad could it be? The guilt was crippling and nothing he wanted to relive, but it was manageable.

He had to be brave. Beverly would strangle him if he chickened out now and ran up the hill without having peeked into the locker room. He had just decided that he was going to pull at the door when his adult body dissolved, never letting him touch the handle.

**April 7th 1989**

Richie was still out of breath. He pinched his T-shirt and pulled it outwards to let the breeze in between the fabric and his skin. His face was flushed red and the sweat made his hair stick to his forehead. The way he carried himself was more like a stumble than a walk, feet heavy like lumps of weight and his thighs aching.

”I no runner am!” he panted in broken English. It was his impression of an immigrant, but he had not yet decided wherefrom. He sighed, and in his normal accent he groaned, ”Fuck this shit. It’s not even funny. I hate running.”

”I think you did a pretty good job,” Eddie encouraged.

”I was the last one to finish. Everyone else has already gone home.”

”Yeah, but at least you _did_ finish! Didn’t expect you to honestly.”

”Fuck off, Eds.”

Eddie wasn’t even allowed to participate in PE since his mom was afraid he might get fit and healthy or something, but he watched their classes and was like a cheerleader on the bench. He patted Richie repeatedly on the back and laughed as Richie complained all the way from the outdoor field to the locker room behind the corner.

”When you’re done here, come meet up with us outside the library, alright?” Eddie cocked his head in the direction towards the library building. ”Big Bill said he had something important to tell us. I think he’s been investigating the house at Neibolt Street.”

”Got it.” Richie swept the wet hair out of his face. He put his hands to his waist and bended over slightly, hoping that the lingering cramps would go away. ”Tell Stan I’ll fucking kill him for not showing up to class. And if he complains about having a stomach ache, tell him he’s a pussy. _’_ Better die a hero than chicken the fuck out’, right? Who said that? Was it Plato? George Washington?”

”I don’t think anybody did.”

”Yah, whatever. You go ahead. I’ll be there in a minute.” Richie flicked with his hand in the air.

A part of him had wished that Eddie would join him in the locker room, just to keep him company and because it sucked to be the last one to join the group when everybody else had already caught up and started having fun without you. Now he just wanted to shower as quick as possible and get out of the gym clothes.

He dwelled by the door to see Eddie hurrying (taking lots of tiny steps instead of fewer large ones) away towards the library that loomed in the background. When he was out of sight Richie pulled the door handle and went inside.

The locker room was constructed like a half-assed afterthought — a literal cube of concrete that was located a five-minute walk away from the middle school’s main building, just beneath the slope. It didn’t have any proper windows, only some narrow ones near the ceiling that let shards of daylight in but didn’t offer any view of the outside world. The room was very dark otherwise, with florescent lights that flickered constantly. Anyone, with or without epilepsy, would start blinking frantically like a seizure upon entering. It was referred to as ’the dungeon’ for a reason.

Richie slumped down on the bench and kicked his shoes off. He rested his head against the locker behind him for a minute, catching his breath. The other boys had already changed and gone home, only leaving an obtrusive smell of sweat and their father’s colognes behind, and a bottle of water which someone would probably wonder where it was in the near future.

Being alone in the obscure locker room should have been scary, or at least a bit unpleasant, but Richie liked it better than sharing the scant space with a bunch of other boys. Here, more than anywhere else, he was reminded of that he was all sorts of wrong. The other boys were rowdy and sporty, knew the names of all the football players and probably made their parents proud. And they definitely didn’t get nervous when the other boys started flexing and commenting on each other’s muscles.

”They look nice, don’t they, Richie?”

The voice came from the ventilation in the ceiling. Richie froze on the spot. He didn’t dare moving anything but his eyes, and he stared at the ventilation without blinking, despite the flickering lights. There was no rattling, only the voice, creaky like an old person’s but childish at once. Someone up there must have been sitting very still, and whoever it was, Richie didn’t want to meet them.

”Yes, you heard me!” the voice giggled. ”The other boys, they look nice, don’t you think?”

Richie didn’t answer.

”Oh, I know that’s what you think. I know everything, Richie. Eve~ry~thing.” The voice giggled again. ”I could tell everyone, but you wouldn’t want that, would you?”

Now Richie swallowed and slowly raised from the bench. He stayed close to the lockers but started making his way towards the exit, sliding sideways rather than walking. He stepped in puddles of water that had dripped on the floor, soaking his socks. The whole time he kept his eyes on the ventilation. This had to be a joke. A hidden camera maybe? But it was brutal and crossed all lines. Richie hadn’t told anyone, not even his closest friends. There was no way that a person in the ventilation system could know anything unless it had unlimited access to his brain and feelings.

Suddenly a shower started streaming. Richie flinched back and slammed against the locker behind him. The water ran directly down the drain with a slurping sound. Nobody had pressed the button. The voice hummed a cheerful tune and it actually sounded like there were instruments playing as well. It was like a playful lullaby except it was distorted by an infernal presence, something that made the melody sound like a funeral marsh, or the last song one would ever hear. Richie was still drenched in sweat but now he was freezing so much that it felt like his blood had turned to ice.

”What do you want?” he squeaked.

”Fun!” the voice exclaimed. ”I want so have so, so, so much fun! But you can’t go to your friends now. No, you can’t. That won’t end well. Better stay away from the Neibolt house, Richie. It’s more fun that way. And when I’m not having fun I can do bad things, Richie. You don’t want me to tell anyone you want to touch their muscles, do you, do you? That wouldn’t be so fun, would it?”

Richie had almost reached the exit now. Truthfully, he had never been so afraid in his whole life. He had imagined himself combatting monsters, beating Henry Bowers black and blue and fighting bravely for a good cause (though he couldn’t pinpoint what that would be), but now he just wanted to run away. In this moment he realized that he was actually a runner after all. He wanted to run more than anything in the world.

”You like to have fun too, Richie, don’t you?” the voice asked. ”Jokes and comedy, that’s your thing, right, Richie? Making everyone laugh? See, that’s my thing too. I am the dancing clown. Would you like to be a clown, Richie? You could come with me, Richie. We’ll have lots of fun together.”

The smooth metal of the door handle under his fingertips was the more delightful thing Richie had ever felt. He slowly pressed it down.

”Oh, you’re leaving, Richie?” the voice whined, ”Leaving already? But I could teach you how to be funny, Richie. Would you like that? Would you? You’re not very funny now, you know. Your friends don’t like your joked very much, Richie. Don’t you want to stay with me? I’ll teach you things that’s fun. So much fun, Richie. Don’t leave.”

Richie pressed the handle down and hurled himself out. He slammed the door shut as fast as he could behind him and stayed with his back pressed against it.

He could hear the sound of the showers going off, all of them this time. The lockers slammed furiously. Richie held the door shut with all his might, afraid that it’d burst open if he didn’t. He was panting and stared right in front of him. He didn’t know what was more surreal — the commotion behind him, or the stillness in front of him. A woman of a bike passed. She pedaled joyfully along the jogging trail. Couldn’t she hear it?

The music played louder, every instrument out of tune. It sounded like symphony of screams, and at the same time the voice from the ventilation system shrieked about staying away from the Neibolt house, but Richie knew exactly where he was going.

”I am Pennywise, Richie! Remember that!” the voice called.

That’s when Richie decided to run. The door slammed open the very second he stopped pressing his body against it. The music blasted into the open, but the biking woman didn’t even look behind her to see what it was all about. Richie threw a quick glance behind him. Some lockers had been torn off the wall. The bench was broken in half. There was water everywhere. But the strangest thing of all was the boys.

In the ruins of the locker room a whole group of boys were changing. They passed a basketball back and fourth, laughed and compared muscles. Some of them strutted around in their underwear, drying their hair with their towels. Some came directly from the shower, fully naked. There were so many of them, too many to fit in the room. Their bodies seemed to melt into whoever was standing next to them. None of them appeared to be aware of the circus music that was playing and that a voice was laughing from the ventilation in the ceiling.

They couldn’t be real. They weren’t there.

Richie sprinted towards the library at a speed which would have impressed both the PE teacher, the sporty guys in his grade and his father. He didn’t think twice about the fact that he was running in his sweaty socks while his shoes were trapped inside the locker room with a fucking demon. Richie was too scared to even think.

By the time he rounded the middle school building he had already started questioning what he had heard and seen. It had to be a hallucination. It was his own brain messing with him. That was the only explanation. But then again…

The Losers were gathering outside the library because they had all experienced strange things lately. Bill already had a plan. They knew that the Neibolt house was cursed, that something was weird about Derry.

The one thing that made Richie feel the queasiest was the fact that the voice had told him its name. It just made It more real. Perhaps that was Its only goal? Somewhere in his guts Richie knew that the thing in the ventilation system could have killed him if It had wanted to. It was terrifying to think that he and his friends were just being played with and everything that happened was at someone else’s command.

**June 9th 2020**

Richie stumbled away from the locker room and threw up under the oak. He just bended over and couldn’t stop it. The shirt he had so desperately tried to flatten and make look presentable was now drenched in sweat, but if it was because the memory had scared him so much or if it was because the memory was bleeding into the present, he didn’t want to know.

The children playing in the background was no longer sweet. Their laughter and yelling reminded him of the song that beamed out from the ventilation, and of the voice’s giggling — Pennywise’s giggling. If Richie had had the power, he would have leaped up the hill and called for help, but now he was clammed up and feeling so weak that he could pass out at the spot. He hunched down and wiped the drops of sweat off his forehead.

”Richie!”

Ben, Bill and Beverly came down the slope as fast as they could without slipping. Bill’s hands were still bloody, but his face was back to normal — as far as normal goes when you’re haunted by entities. They looked so different now that Richie barely recognized them. Bill, who lost his brother to Pennywise the Clown in October 1988, was a vastly different Bill from the Bill who wrote novels with mediocre endings.

Who were these people really? Richie didn’t know them. And frankly they didn’t know him either. He didn’t even know himself anymore. That terrified him more than anything, especially since he thought he had rediscovered his true self by accessing his childhood memories — but apparently not the most imposing ones of all, the ones that told the true story of what happened in Derry.

”Did you see anything?” Ben panted.

The mere thought of the voice he had heard made Richie cringe, but what was worst was the feeling It brought along. It wasn’t just a sound, a sight, a smell — It came from the inside. It made itself a part of you and filled you with fear until you couldn’t stand it anymore. Stanley’s frenzy suddenly made sense. He knew. He knew all along, somewhere deep down. That son of a bitch, why didn’t he tell them? How could he let them be so blinded?

”Let’s go to the pharmacy,” Beverly said. Strands of her hair had slipped out of the bun and her blouse had partially untucked itself. ”We need something for Bill’s hands, and you’re not looking too well either, Richie.”

”I d-don’t think this is the k-kind of th-th-thing you can take an aspi-hi-rin for,” Bill mumbled. He held his hands out in front of him. The pinky on his right hand’s joint was at an unnatural angle, the upper part pointing in an entirely different direction from the rest.

Richie’s first thought was that if Eddie was in Derry, they’d find him at the pharmacy. This goaded an urge to run all the way there, but at the same time Richie wished that Eddie would stay away. He hoped that Eddie wouldn’t come to Derry, not yet. Richie couldn’t let him get hurt or dirty, he’d hate that.

Once Eddie arrived Richie wanted him to be nothing but happy. He wanted them to have another chance at what they didn’t dare to try. Maybe they weren’t meant to be, but it was unfair of fate to have them be born in the 70’s and thus grow up in the 80’s, in a place as miserable as Derry. Under the right circumstance things could have been different. All Richie wanted was a fair chance.

But nothing in the world would ever be fair as long as evil forces steered their lives into disaster and misfortune — and the successful careers that they all apparently had in common couldn’t compensate for their lost friendship. Richie could only think of his career as the tragedy that parted him from what truly mattered, a trick played on him by Pennywise, and a trick was still still unfurling itself. Who knew what was yet to come?

 _’This is just the beginning, you know?’_ a child’s voice echoed in his head. At the same time one of the kids playing with sticks started laughing hysterically. It sent a shiver down Richie’s spine and it made everything blurry. He was awake, but it was a nightmare. He couldn’t even tell what was real or not anymore.

He was just a tiny boat floating around astray, a pathetic little thing swirling around in a whirlpool much stronger than himself. All of them were.

He had to understand to bring it to an end. He was going to find the last puzzle pieces, try to make sense out of everything that happened. He was going to have it figured out by the time Stanley arrived, so that he wouldn’t have to be afraid anymore. That, along with keeping Eddie nice and clean, was his top priority. He had never been so sure of something. He wanted to keep them out of it.

”Richie, let’s go.” Ben nodded his head towards the jogging trail that would lead them back to the middle school’s front side. ”Maybe an aspirin won’t fix it, but we should at least have something to eat before we keep going.”

”No, I think we better go to the Neibolt House,” Richie objected. ”Right now.”

He straightened up and adjusted his glasses. He nodded firmly and gave the other three a stern look to let them know that this wasn’t negotiable. The other three didn’t even seem to understand what he meant by ’Neibolt House’.

”It was the creepy house where we fought Pennywise,” he explained. He kept his voice steady and tried to not look afraid. He managed to maintain this confident mask for about ten seconds before bending over to throw up again.


	18. Chapter 18

”Shit,” Beverly murmured, covering her mouth with her hand, the other at her hip. ”I remember that we fought here.”

They stood at the edge of the Neigbolt Street, but in front of them was nothing but an overgrown lawn and a pile of planks and roof tiles sticking up from a hole in the ground where a house had once been. A forsaken tyre laid on top of it, along with some beer cans and other junk. A thick layer of dust covered everything, making it look like a faded photograph in comparison to its surrounding.

”Did we win?” Ben asked nervously.

”Well, the house is g-gone.”

”Does that mean anything though? It could still be alive somewhere. I don’t think demons are necessarily attached to a specific house, are they?” Ben took a hesitant step closer to the lawn. He craned his neck to see the pile of debris better. A gentle wind made his hair flutter.

”Let’s get closer,” Beverly said.

She stomped past him and started pulling a plank, kicking another one to the side as if she wanted to check if Pennywise was still hiding under the junk. She grunted as she hurled the tyre to the side. It rolled for a couple of feet before keeling over. She was already grabbing at a piece of metal, a pipe-looking thing that stuck up amid the planks. It made a squeaking sound when she pulled at it.

”Careful, Bev,” Ben pleaded under his breath.

”Sh-she didn’t h-he-hear that.”

”Didn’t want her to.”

”She’d k-k-kill you.”

”I know, that’s why. She’d only be more tempted do do it if she knew that she wasn’t supposed to.”

Ben and Bill chuckled in unison, their head close together.

The blood on Bill’s hands had died to a maroon colored curst. He had a scratch mark on his forehead too, right in the middle where he had slammed it against the wall. Since remembering Georgie his stutter hadn’t gone away and his sentences had become significantly fewer and shorter as well. He didn’t say a thing on their way to the Neibolt Street.

”Did the house just collapse? Did we destroy it?” Ben scratched his head. It didn’t seem like he expected an answer. Bill just shrugged. Richie didn’t know what to reply.

He was conflicted by what he saw. Richie had mentally prepared himself to face the Haunted House with the broken windows and the sagged roof, but now there was nothing much to see. A smell of mold and attic emanated from the bewildered garden. The worst thing was that Richie didn’t remember what happened to the house, if it had crumbled because of a certain event or simply because it was so old and neglected that the nails and the wood eventually couldn’t support the structure anymore.

”We fought It twice,” he said gravely. He knelt down and picked up a piece of a shattered glass bottle that laid by the entrance. He held it in his hand, let the sun reflect in it. He caught a glimpse of himself on the smooth surface, but it wasn’t his adult self. ”But we didn’t kill It that first time in ’88. That’s why we had to come back again four years ago, right?” he continued.

”So we killed It the second time?”

”I don’t remember.”

The street was beautifully serene. The rowdy sound of Beverly digging around in the junk was the only disturbance. The lack of snarling monsters and creaking doors almost made it stranger. The sun, the blue sky, the birds chirping — none of that belonged here, where evil itself had once thrived. Maybe it still did? The house that laid shattered into a thousand pieces used to be the lair where evil had made itself at home.

The feeling of Its presence had been burnt into Richie’s brain ever since that day It spoke to him through the ventilation system in the locker room, but that instance wasn’t the beginning, nor was it the end. It was just one encounter in a sequence of many and Richie struggled to remember when it all began. The werewolf, the leaper, the mummy, the eye, Georgie… and the clown, of course.

”Even if the clown is still alive, he’s not here anymore,” Beverly settled. She dropped one last plank on the ground and returned to the street. She brushed off the dust on her hands on her jeans, leaving marks on the dark material. ”We won’t find anything here.”

”Yeah, and the aura is gone.” Richie still couldn’t force his eyes away from the piece of glass. ”But I’m quite sure there’s more to remember. And there’s definitely something weird about this place, still.”

The reflection nodded although Richie didn’t. The shard was too small for him to get a good look of his younger self, but it was clearly him. The thick glasses and the unbuttoned floral shirt was proof enough. Sometimes the reflection moved too far to the side so that Richie couldn’t see him anymore, then he popped back into sight. _’What do you want?’_ was the only thing Richie thought. _’What are you trying to tell me?’_ But he wasn’t convinced that the reflection wanted to tell him anything in particular.

”Do you think we could trigger a flashback somehow? To unlock some more information?” Ben suggested.

”I’d rather not — ” Richie put the piece of glass in one pocket, ” — But I know that it’s possible. I triggered one at the Boston Logan Airport. I used this notebook to do it.” He dug out the notebook from the other. It was such a lame thing, just a plain notebook, but it hosted a special energy that beamed into Richie’s hand as he held it.

”How?” Bill asked.

”I just stalked a family of redheads and then I started drawing.” Richie opened the book at the right page and showed it to him. Bill tried to take the book, but Richie held onto it. He couldn’t let Bill hold it and skim through all the pages, because not even Richie was sure of what he had written. Bill nodded slowly, eyebrows raised. Beverly and Ben leaned in to see too.

”It’s us, isn’t it?” Beverly grinned.

”Sure is. You remember when you made those pillow cases?” Richie traced the drawing with his finger, smiling a little. ”Was that the beginning of your fashion career?”

”Yes, maybe it was.” Beverly touched her face with her finger tips. She laughed to herself. ”Of course it was. How funny! I’ve been asked a billion times how come I wanted to work with fashion, if I had always loved textiles and colors and such things, but I could never answer. I never knew where my interest began.”

She started telling them about how she bought old curtains at the thrift store at the Canal Street to use for practicing. The sewing machine was one of the few things her mother had left behind. She sat there and turned the curtains, that only costed a couple of dollars each, into pillow cases and simple dresses. When she started working and earned more money she started rummaging around in the jewelry boxes and the basket full of buttons, zippers and laces. With those she turned the simple dresses into more advanced ones.

”I never got the chance to wear what I wanted when I was younger because I couldn’t afford it, and dad wouldn’t let me wear anything but outdated stuff that were three sizes too big,” she told them, illustrating the excessive fabric with her arms, ”So I guess making my own clothes was an expression of freedom for me. I didn’t really tell anyone about it. I was a bit ashamed because I thought it was lame to care about appearance.”

They listened and hummed. For a brief moment Richie almost forgot that they were standing right new tothe remains of the Haunted House. He still held the notebook open in his palm. The sketch of himself and Beverly smoking in the clubhouse made it tempting to just leave the Neibolt Street to see if the clubhouse was still intact down in the Barrens.

”So if you’d draw the Haunted House, you would remember what happened there?” Ben said. He glanced from the notebook to the mess on the lawn, then back again. The wistfulness of Beverly’s story dissolved. The corners of her mouth dropped and a chilly wind swept past them.

”Possibly, yes.”

Richie could imagine the house, erect but derelict as it used to be. It was hard to fathom it as a place where a family lived, will freshly painted facades, a groomed garden where kids played. It seemed like the house had always been ghastly, as if it just one day popped up out of nowhere in that condition.

”Go f-for it,” Bill urged him, shifting the weight from one leg to the other.

In the same pocket as he stored the notebook in he also had a pencil, a couple of cigarettes and a lighter. He grabbed a hold of the pencil and held it against a white sheet of paper. He close his eyes and took a deep breath. Reluctantly, he started sketching the outline of a house. He hoped that the invisible force that had helped him create the picture of him and Beverly would kick in soon. He wouldn’t be able to make the sketch accurate without some assistance.

”Guys,” Ben interrupted sharply, ”I just realized something.”

”Because of the drawing?” Richie raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t even halfway done yet, you could only see that it was the Hunted House if you squinted and used a generous amount of imagination. He couldn’t feel the force. Now he was just drawing the best he could based off the nebulous memory. Ben shook his head and wet his lips.

”No. I found a poem in on the nightstand this morning. I told you about that, didn’t I?” he said.

”The one about January embers?”

”No, that one I found yesterday. I found a new one when I went back up to my room after breakfast.”

He hadn’t told anyone. Now he ran a hand through his hair and let out a puff of hair through his mouth. Richie paused his work. Whatever Ben was about to say, he didn’t want to hear it. It couldn’t be a good thing. Ben then put both hands on his hips and took some swaying steps around on the spot, his head tossed backwards, his eyes staring up in the sky.

”May I borrow notebook?” It was actually a demand and Ben was already reaching for the book. Richie reluctantly gave it to him, along with the pencil. The other three waited apprehensively while Ben wrote something. It only took him a couple of seconds. ”The poem was about a broken arm and a scar for life. I wanted to write it so that I wouldn’t forget it,” he explained.

Richie wanted to take the notebook back, but now Ben was the one who wouldn’t give it up. He read what he had written several times, his eyes flickered up and down the page, from the left to the right, but he only mumbled to himself. Nobody else could hear what he was reciting. When Beverly pushed herself up on her tippy-toes to peep, he simply turned around and took a couple of steps in the opposite direction.

”Did anyone break an arm in the Neibolt House?” he asked. He pronounced each syllable with bold clarity, like an examination. He tapped restlessly on the notebook with the pencil.

”Eddie,” Bill answered dutifully.

”Eddie broke his arm.” Beverly touched her own arm, the right forearm to be precise. She traced it up and down with her fingertips, carefully at first and then more forcefully, like an urgent scratching. ”That was the first time. The summer ’89. He still wore the cast when we swore the oath.”

”The oath,” Richie repeated without really letting any air out of his mouth.

Without really knowing why, he hunched down and started searching on the ground for more glass. He kicked with his shoe in the dust but it only revealed more dust and some rusty nails. He slowly made his way closer to the pile of planks where the house had once been. Another couple of shards laid right in front of the pile, the spot that was at the opposite end of the path leading from the garden gate.

”What are you doing, Rich?” Beverly called.

”I don’t know,” he replied curtly as he picked the pieces off the ground.

He blew the dust off the surface and held them up in the sunlight. These shards had the same color as the one in his pocket. They were surely pieces of the same object. They were a smoky color like a bottle of wine or medicine. Something about the way they laid distributed gave Richie the idea that they were wanted him to pick them up, as if they had been waiting there for a long time, pleading for Richard Tozier specifically to come and find them in the dust.

”Stan was the one who got a scar for life,” Ben said. ”It bit his face. Right here.” He pointed at the side of his face with a trembling finger. He still held the notebook with the other. ”Right? Or did anyone else get any scar for life?”

”We all d-did.” Bill’s lips were pressed to a thin line, his eyes expressionless. With both feet steady on the ground, his spine straight, he resembled his younger self more than ever. He shot a sharp glance towards the house that wasn’t there anymore. ”But we killed It.”

Tension was building up but nobody knew what to do with it. How were they supposed to turn the tension into something of worth, a clue, a memory — anything at all? The pile in the middle of the garden was as useless as when they had found it. Richie was so determined to solve the mystery that he started contemplation how to rebuild the whole house from scratch, but he didn’t want to do it unless it was absolutely necessary.

”Bill, do you remember the speech before we went inside that first time? The one when you didn’t even stutter once?” Richie said. He just remembered it himself. Bill nodded hesitantly. Richie swallowed and tightened his grip around the glass. He could feel the sharp edges poke at his skin. ”Then do it again.”

As Richie listened to Bill trying to recreate his own speech, he closed his eyes and tried to think of all the thing they had figured out so far. Eddie broke his arm. Stanley got bit. It was the summer ’89. Georgie died in October ’88. Bill didn’t stutter once. In that moment Richie remembered why the glass pieces were familiar to him — he was the one who smashed the bottle against the pillar. It was right before they went inside to face Pennywise.

Bill’s voice was distant, but Richie caught every word. They went right into his soul. He remembered how terrified he was when he heard Bill say it the first time. The terror was as real the second time. There was adrenaline and doubt mixed in with it.

Richie shut his eyes open. The immediate instinct was to look at the glass shards. They were arranged so that they covered his whole palm when he had his hand open. When placed side by side they made up a bigger surface on which he could see a more detailed reflection. It wasn’t just his younger self looking back anymore. The rest of the Losers were there too. Their bikes were thrown on the ground outside the Haunted House, right at the spot where Ben stood now.

”Richie, something’s going on with you notebook!” Ben alerted. He stretched the notebook away from his body, holding it between two fingers in the corner. It wiggled back and forth but there was no wind.

Bill had started to climb the remains of the Neibolt House. His feet slipped on the uneven surfaces and when he swept with his hand to move debris out of the way, the crusted blood on his knuckles cracked open. Thick drops of blood trickled down his forearms as he made it to the very top. That’s when he grabbed one of the pipes and started hitting the pile. He stomped with his feet and swung the pipe through the air. He hissed through clenched teeth and hit harder each time.

”Richie!” Ben called.

”Throw it away!” Richie told him.

Ben tossed the notebook to the side. It kept moving even after landing on the ground. Ben staggered away from it, eyes shut wide. Richie’s first thought was that the notebook itself was vibrating, but then he felt his knees wobbling and the metal fence surrounding the garden started creaking. Like an earthquake.

”Bill!” Beverly yelled, ”Get away from there!”

Richie glanced down at the glass pieces. The same second he dropped them on the ground he flinched back, hands open and held in the air. Pennywise. His distorted face, the beadlike eyes with their yellow glow. Richie stumbled backwards towards the street.

The house was slowly raising from the ruins, its shadow spread over the unkept lawn. He grabbed Beverly’s arm and pulled her along towards the gate. Bill struggled to get down as an old door stuck up in the way. ’ _Very scary’_ was written on the wood with red paint. At least you could hope it was red paint. Richie gasped at the sight. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. It was all in their heads.

”Richie, the notebook —” Ben breathed, pointing at the book,” — Richie, something’s going on with the notebook! What’s going on? Does it usually do this? Do you hear that? That sound?”

Instruments played out of tune, like shrieking hinges. It came from the notebook. The volume increased gradually. Richie slammed his palms over his ears. Beverly rushed towards the notebook and started stomping with her feet, trying to smash it.

”Pennywise is messing with us!” Richie yelled. ”He’s fucking messing with us! BILL, GET AWAY FROM THERE FOR FUCKS SAKE!”

”We f-fucking killed It! W-we shouldn’t have t-t-to run anym-more!” Bill hissed furiously.

He ran towards the gate with his face still turnt over his shoulder. When he came closer he grabbed his head and groaned. The music was like knives cutting inside your ears, inside your skull. Beverly cursed as the notebook moved away from her each time she tried to stomp on it. In the background the house was rebuilding itself, and Richie couldn’t honestly not convince himself that it was just an illusion anymore.

”GUYS!”

That sound came from further down the street. Richie turned around. Running towards them, clad in a plaid flannel and jeans, was no-one else but Mike Hanlon. He panted hoarsely but kept the pace up. He had a backpack slung over his shoulder that bumped from side to side with each step.

He ran right past the house on Neibolt Street 29, and although he had come running as fast as he could, his face wasn’t distressed. He didn’t even stop to say hello. _’This way!’_ was all he said, but Richie was too confused to even move at first. He didn’t start running until Mike pulled at his arm and pushed him forward. Ben grabbed onto Beverly’s hand and they followed closely behind. Bill kicked fiercely at the metal fence a couple of times before getting going. The fence rattled and creaked.

The notebook remained on the ground, twitching and fluttering open. Some pages blew out and swirled away into the wind. The music kept playing, but amid the horrid tunes of Pennywise’s circus tunes, was the loveliest sound of friends talking — the Losers. The sounds crashed against each other, creating something that couldn’t be described as anything but chaos. There was a total of fourteen voices, seven children and seven adults. When when they were too far away to hear the sound coming from the book, Richie could hear it inside his mind.

The sounds overlapped each other in a huge mess, but each time someone said something, a vivid picture popped up in his mind. It probably did for the other — now four — of his friends. Beverly was crying. Ben’s face was scrunched into a grimace and Bill jerked his head from side to side as if he was trying to shake something out of his skull. The only thing Richie could see of Mike Hanlon was his back. He didn’t glance behind him a single time.

_’Have you ever heard of a staph infection?!’, ’It’s summer! We’re supposed to be having fun!’, ’I knew that already’,’Shouldn’t we have some people keep watch? You know, just in case something bad happens?’,’Beep, beep!’,’I’ve missed our philosophic smoking sessions’,’I think I like boys’, ’Go blow your dad you mullet-wearing asshole’, ”No way, you piece of shit!”_

Richie blinked frantically. His glasses barely stayed on his face as he ran but he couldn’t see properly anyway. Each time he closed his eyes another imagine appeared on the back of his eyelids, each time he opened his eyes he was another couple of feet closer to the quarry.

Mike was leading them to the quarry!

The Neibolt Street became ever more distant. Mike didn’t slow down until they were in a common neighborhood again, where other people strolled around carelessly and the lawns were mowed. They received some concerned glances when they slowed down to catch their breaths. They kept walking with determined steps, still following the route towards the quarry. Mike didn’t even need to tell them that’s where they were going. It also made perfect sense. The quarry, along with the clubhouse and Uncle Sam’s, used to be their favorite spots. The house at Neibolt St. 29 was not one of them.

The voices in Richie’s head slowly faded away. All that was left behind was an echoing stillness. It felt like an empty hole. The turmoil of memories was overwhelming, but Richie cherished the brief glimpses of the life he had once lived, the childhood he had forgotten. There was still so much that he didn’t remember, but it also struck him as a fact that most adults don’t remember every single moment of their childhood. That realization made him immensely disappointed. The last thing he heard was Eddie saying _’I fucked your mom’._ After that his mind became even quieter than usual and the lack of visions made his brain display a completely blank nothingness instead.

Mike veered into a smaller trail. It went through some nature, past hiking spots and scout cabinets, and ended at the quarry. He didn’t say much at didn’t look at them. His eyes were locked right ahead or at his feet and his facial expression was uneasy.

”Mike Hanlon! What a timing!” Ben dunked Mike in the back and let out an exhausted, lukewarm laughter. He barely even received a reply. Mike just nodded and forced a little smile. Apparently they didn’t need to introduce themselves and this was not the right time for small-talk.

They walked in silence until they reached the quarry. The water was still more green than blue, the cliffs were white and smooth. Naturally, cliffs didn’t usually change their shape much, but Richie let out a sigh of relief anyway. Everything about Derry seemed to have change — expect the quarry. They climbed down to the picnic spot and sat down.

Mike had his hands clasped on his lap. His head hung low and his back was curved. If he hadn’t look so sullen, he would have been a handsome man. He had aged well and he still radiated that friendly, polite energy that would usually anyone feel happy to see him. Seeing him so dejected, however, had the exact opposite effect. Richie couldn’t even look at him without feeling guilty.

”How much do you know?” Mike asked at last.

”Of what?”

”The things that happened here.”

”We know that Pennywise killed some kids and that Georgie was one of them,” Beverly said. She spoke like a soft whisper. She had stopped crying, but there was a woefulness hanging over her like a veil. She glanced at Bill, who sat a bit further away with his eyes staring expressionlessly at the water. ”And that we fought It twice. Once ’89, and then again 2016.”

”Okay,” Mike said thoughtfully.

”So, when did you arrive here?” Ben asked him. He shifted his position of the cliffs.

”Oh, I’ve been here for about two weeks now.” Mike seemed amused by their surprised faces, but the amusement faded right away. ”Something told me that I was supposed to come here, and I suppose that something wanted me to be here for a bit before the rest of you. I didn’t know you were coming, but I believed that you would show up eventually. Maybe it’d take a week, maybe a year, maybe twenty-three years — I had no idea. Something wanted me to be here so I went.”

”I think something wanted at least one of us to remember, and that one happened to be you,” Richie mumbled. He felt awful knowing that he could have been the one who never forgot, but like a selfish moron he left Derry as soon as there was a chance to do it, and he never went back. The thought of Stanley waiting for him to come back and visit during the holidays felt like someone wrenched his soul like a wet towel.

”Just like last time, right? You never left Derry,” Ben added.

”That’s right.”

”And there was probably a reason for it.”

”Yes, most likely.”

”So what are we gathering for?” Richie crossed one leg over the other. He bluntly assumed that Mike had all the answers that he needed, but Mike sighed at the question and shook his head. On a second thought, it wasn’t entirely fair to expect poor ole Mike to know why supernatural forces were messing with them, but Richie was still disappointed. If Mike didn’t know, who knew? Did anyone know? ”So you mean that we’re brought here for no other reason but to hang out and have flashbacks?” he frowned.

”I don’t think the universe always has a reason. It just is,” Mike said. ”But I know that certain things are better to simply not remember. Exactly what happened in the Neibolt House is one of them. Besides, I don’t think it’s a good idea to mess with the remains. It may be gone, but if you stirr around too much in old things and reawaken those memories, they become more real — _It_ becomes more real. Pennywise lives inside your head, It feeds on your fears. Let your fear go. It’s better to stay away from the house.”

All of this he said slowly, as if each word weight a ton and was hard to pronounce. He wiped some sweat off his forehead. Richie couldn’t imagine just how much Mike had gone through on his own while waiting for the others to arrive. Something about Mike’s grave expression gave him the impression that Mike knew a lot more than he wanted to know.

”So you think Pennywise could come back again if we let our memories become too vidid? Like our childhood fears can bring It back to life?” Beverly asked.

”I’m not sure. I’d like to think that we killed It once and for all, but I’m not sure. I personally feel like Pennywise is closer whenever I think about the things that happened. Better to not risk it, right? There’s nothing we can do about what happened back then anyway.”

Richie stood up and started walking around aimlessly, hands on his hips. His found the spots to place his feet with ease. He knew these cliffs. After all the running and sweating it was tempting to just throw himself into the water, but nobody was in the mood for splashing around and doing backflips, so what was the point? Instead he just paced back and fourth. He didn’t want to hear more of Mike’s wisdom, because he knew there was so much truth in it.

Bill remained on the same spot, motionless and serious. He had probably not even heard Mike’s explanation at all. Richie wanted to tell him to snatch out of it, but he also knew that everyone coped with these events in their own way. Bill shut them out, locked himself inside his own little bubble.

Bill was always a bit distant, almost in the same way as Stanley was, but it two very different ways. You never really knew what Bill was thinking until he told you that he had a plan, and by that time it was too late to make him change his mind. Richie was a bit nervous about what would come out of this. He couldn’t even imagine what Bill’s next move would be, but he wouldn’t be surprised if Bill suddenly wanted to go back to the Neibolt House to revive Pennywise — so that he could kill him again out of rage. But it was just as likely that Bill would just gloom around forever, live with the internalized anger and grief until he died, without ever letting anyone share the pain with him.

Mike avoided facing any of them. He rubbed his forehead every know and then, but it was only his hand that moved. Beverly and Ben spoke quietly without much emotion. The torpidity lasted for a long while. Going back to the civilization had no point, staying here had no point either. If they weren’t allowed to explore their memories, what was the point of all of this? They couldn’t forget about everything all over again! They couldn’t shatter the group and pretend that they never met now that they were finally together again!

”This is fucking depressing!” Richie exclaimed at last. The other four looked up, maybe delighted, maybe annoyed by his attempt to break the silence. ”Let’s do something! Let’s go to the clubhouse or something! Nothing dangerous about remembering the good stuff, is there? We won’t revive Pennywise by going to the clubhouse, right? Let’s try to find Stanley and Eddie! Maybe they’re here already but we’ve somehow managed to miss them? I mean, we didn’t know that you were here all along either,” Richie gestured with a limp hand towards Mike.

”Maybe we could try to find their phone numbers?” Ben suggested. His eyes lit up again.

”Wait, how couldn’t we come to think of that earlier?!” Beverly slapped her hand against her forehead. She laughed out loud like a braying donkey. ”We’re so stupid!”

”Exactly!” Ben nodded wildly. He dug out his phone from his pocket. ”Let’s just google their names.”

Bill finally joined them and they formed a half-circle around Ben. When Richie asked Bill if he was okay he just nodded shortly. Richie didn’t know if his reluctance to talk was because he didn’t want to share his feelings or if it was because he was ashamed of his stutter. When Richie tried to tell him that it was fine, that they’d listen even if he needed ’three fucking hours’ to finish his sentence, Bill brushed him off and rolled his eyes. Ben now had their full attention and it was obvious that finding them on Google wasn’t as easy as he had thought it would be.

”I don’t have any internet out here,” he muttered. ”We can head back and try again. They had great wi-fi at Uncle Sam’s and at the hotel.”

Richie’s heart sank at the disappointment. He was so ready to talk so them. He wanted to hold the phone as they called and he was already plotting how he could best prank them when they picked up. Now he wanted to run back. Heck, he was getting used to running around and it was actually not too bad. It fills you with adrenaline, makes you feel alive. Richie never thought he’d think those thoughts in the context of running. But he also guessed that if you were one of those sick fuckers who run every day, you’d eventually get tired of it, so he was definitely not going to be one of those people.

”Mike?” Bill said. ”Y-you co-coming?”

The other four were ready to go, but Mike remained seated at the picnic spot. Now he looked like he was about to break down entirely but he masked it well. He breathed slowly as if he was counting. That was a trick Richie had learned when he first started doing gigs and his nerves made him feel like he was going crazy.

”Guys,” Mike said like a heavy exhale, ”I need to tell you something.”

They sat down again without asking any questions. At this point Richie was prepared for anything, he had seen and heard so much already. He waited impatiently, urging to go back. He had now settled for the best way to greet Stanley after all these years, and he had also started thinking of how to apologize for not keeping his promise, for not coming back. On the other hand, being haunted by an evil entity was a pretty legitimate excuse, but it still hurt. Maybe he could have fought back more? Maybe he could have held up against Pennywise for a bit longer before letting the demon force him out of town?

”Last time all of us gathered, we didn’t actually gather all of us. Does this sound familiar to you?” Mike inquired.

Silence.

”Stanley didn’t show up at the restaurant. Do you remember that?”

”He was just late,” Richie said.

Mike rubbed his face with his palms. He looked away and shook his head slowly. Beverly was the next who started shaking her head. She inhaled in short breaths and then she began to say _’no’_ repeatedly, like one monotonous stream. Richie held his breath instead. His heart felt like it had stopped.

”He was just late,” he restated, this time more urgently. He gestured with an angry finger in the air, the same way he did when he told his manager that he didn’t want to do a movie or when he told his former girlfriend that she was full of bullshit. ”Stanley was late! Ben and I talked about this earlier! There was an issue with the traffic or something!”

”Richie, you know that’s —” Mike sighed heavily, ” — That’s not true.”

Now Bill was the one whose eyes watered up. He cussed and wiped them away. Richie was going to suffocate. He snatched his glasses off and opened his mouth to insist one last time that his best friend Stanley Uris was in fact just late to the restaurant, but he didn’t have the power to do it.

”Stan killed himself when It came back. He did it to save us. He wrote you letters. Do you remember them?” Mike said. Nobody remembered. Then, after a deep inhale, Mike told them the second thing that they didn’t want to hear, ”And Eddie — he showed up, but he never left. He died fighting Pennywise in the Neibolt House 2016.”

And that’s when the whole world fell apart.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking around. This is honestly not my best work, but I'm glad that I finished it and I hope you don't regret reading it even if it wasn't the most fantastic thing you've ever read.

**December 9th 2058**

The living room was lively. The adults were constantly ready to rush in to stop the kids from hitting glasses off the edge of the table, spilling soda on the carpet, wrestling each other and climbing the furniture. A Pomeranian dog frisked around amongst their legs, eagerly trying to keep up with the kids. It was a miracle that the poor thing didn’t get stepped on.

The living room wasn’t big enough for all of them, but Richie found it delighting to have them all gathered like this. His and Toivo’s apartment was mostly dull and way too quiet for his liking, and before Gina and her husband moved to the bigger house it was difficult for them to have family gatherings. Seeing them all at once was the icing on the cake, and the cake was life itself. It was much harder to have actual conversations when there was a bunch of grandkids running around everywhere, but the sound of their laughter and bickering was like the most wonderful music.

”Grandpa! Catch this!” Gina’s oldest son, an eleven-year old boy named Felix, held a volleyball ball in his hands. He was ready to throw it when his mother snatched it away from him and told him sharply that he couldn’t play with balls indoors. He groaned with the same dramatic intensity as if she had just told him he wasn’t allowed for have fun ever again in his entire life.

”Mom, I’m being careful!” he complained.

”No! I’ve told you a thousand times before! We have too many fragile things in here!” She pointed towards the vases on the windowsill and the ceramic arrangement on the wall. ”Go outside if you want to play with it, and take your cousins with you!” Gina wavered with her hand towards the front door.

”Fine!” Felix sighed. Then he turned to Richie with a challenging grin. ”Wanna join us?”

He had taken his blazer off the moment he had the chance to and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt so that it was crinkled just below his elbow. The chestnut hair that had been combed when he and his parents had welcomed the rest of the family into their home was now sprawling in every direction. He was a rascal in the making, anyone could tell, and Richie loved that about him.

”No, you kids would get so sad if I joined. I’d be a terrible grandpa if I did. You wouldn't stand a chance,” he replied. He opened his hands to say _’nothing I can do, sorry man’._

Felix and his cousins, who had overheard the comment despite being occupied with a new game device, bursted out in loud objections like a tiny army of revolutionists. Richie laughed cheekily and kept offering them one indirect insult after the other. The volleyball itself laid forgotten under Gina’s armchair like a prisoner. The guard was contently sipping wine and chatting with her two siblings and their significant others. Her hand, which seemed to act by its own will, grabbed handfuls of roasted peanuts from a bowel on the low table, one after the other despite that she had declared that she couldn’t even move because she was so full already.

It was a cosy evening, the type of evenings that Richie lived for these days. The snow laid like a thick blanket over Derry. Glistering flakes swirled from the sky. It was not yet Christmas, but Richie treated every opportunity to see his family with the same importance. Nobody mentioned it, but it was uncertain if Richie would get to experience any more Christmases in his life. By the time the 25th came around there was a chance he would be lost already, either dead or too weak to lost to weakness and pain. He had spent a lot of time at the hospital since finding out that the cancer was slowly colonizing one part of his body after the other, and at this point there was nothing more to do but try to keep the spirit up.

Everything was blurry and he could never tell the difference between the twins, but his brain was still alert for the most part. The cancer made him weak and it hurt an awful lot some days, but he didn’t complain. It was about time, anyway. He had done all the things he wanted to do and he’d rather go first than be the last one left behind, and it was inevitable that his friends were only getting older and sicker. Youth wouldn’t come back to them no matter how young they felt at heart.

Richie still liked to laugh and mess around. His hearing allowed him to be a part of the conversations at the dinner table — unlike poor Bill who couldn’t hear a thing unless you yelled it directly into his ear — so for that he was grateful. Richie’s balance was alright until the medicines he was prescribed started messing with it. They made him so nauseous and dizzy that he needed help up and down the stairs, and some weeks he couldn’t do anything but sit like in the armchair in front of the TV — without being able to actually see anything on the screen. The sound of movies were quite nice though. He could imagine what was happening. He had been mentally prepared for the day he wouldn’t be able to read on the jars in the fridge, watch TV and read books. His sight had always been awful.

”But why do you keep insisting on watching on the TV when there’s so many alternatives out there? You could have the movie played inside your brain instead, if you’d just let us install the iBrain. Then your sight wouldn’t be a problem anymore!” his children always frowned. His grandchildren thought the TV was fascinating. Richie had promised that Sandra could have it when he died.

”It has vintage value,” she said once.

Everyoneprobably thought that Richie was too old to keep up with the new technology, or that he refused it because it was different from what he was used to. _’When your grandpa was young, there were no such things, so he doesn’t understand’._ Blah, blah. Richie understood more than they thought. It and it bothered him that they didn’t listen when he insisted that the issue wasn’t that he didn’t trust new technology. It was simply a choice he had made to not let the doctors insert strange inventions into his body because he’d rather die human than live forever as a robot. He didn’t want a chip inside his eyes even if that could make him see things crisply. The mere idea of having someone touch his eyes terrified him for reason that they’d never fully understand.

”You’re probably ugly anyway!” Richie always cackled when Gina and Heidi insisted that he should let the doctors fix his eyes. His grandchildren always laughed hysterically when he teased and made fun of their parents, but his children thought he was being a troublesome old man. Grumpy and messy. They probably thought he was senile and a bit batty too, but that’s just because they didn’t understand his humor.

Yet, Richie adored them and he loved the fact that he had a family to argue with. For the longest time he thought that he would be a lonely man for the rest of his life. When Ben and Beverly revealed that they were expecting, Richie’s best hope was that he’d get to be a godfather or an uncle-figure to the kid, but he never thought he’d have any family to call his own.

Now he had two daughters and a son — Gina, Heidi and Peter. All of them distinctly different from one another, but lovely people in their own way. The girls stayed within Maine’s borders, but Peter had moved to Nebraska when he met his wife. Heidi, who valued family time more than anything, would have killed him if he didn’t come back to visit, and Peter was the most resigned out of the siblings so he obediently came back for holidays and birthdays and sometimes for no particular reason — each time with a new kid, it seemed. He and his wife appeared to be collecting them.

”CAREFUL, Felix! What are you doing?! She’s much younger than you!” Gina bursted, this time because Felix had initiated a wrestling tournament on the round living room carpet. He had niftily chosen one of his younger cousins as his opponent, a scrawny little girl with viciously determined eyes. She seemed totally up for a wrestling match, but Gina strictly told Felix no. Richie chuckled, amused by it all.

He lived through his family these days. He couldn’t do much on his own, but watching the kids grow and learn made him feel young again. He could see himself and his friends in them, sometimes so much that it scared him a little. Richie couldn’t fathom a life without them, but when Toivo had first suggested adopting children he was terrified by the idea. Too much responsibility, too much work! But oh, how happy he was that he dared in the end. He couldn’t let fear control his life forever, could he?

A man named Toivo had entered his life only a couple of years after Richie had returned to Derry 2020. Richie and his childhood friends decided collectively to never move away again, to honor Stanley Uris and Eddie Kaspbrak, and also because no other place felt like their true home. Derry wasn’t a haunted town anymore. Kids grew up there in healthy families and they didn’t disappear every twenty-seven years. The streets were safe, the river was cleansed from the pollution, the derelict buildings were restored. Richie had never regretted his decision to stay in Derry.

”Do you think that everything that happens happens for a reason?” Heidi’s daughter once asked Richie while they were drinking coffee and eating biscuits in his apartment. She was fourteen at the time.

Sandra was the oldest out of the cousins, and thus Richie’s first grandchild. She reached the stage in life when you're curious about everything and want to figure things out when her siblings were still crawling around on the floor, stuffing their faces full of mud. She was also the first of the children who realized that hanging out with your friends was more fun than going to family gatherings. Richie hoped he would be dead before the rest of them realizedthe same thing.

”Yes, but maybe not for the reason that you expect,” Richie had answered her, pondering as he spoke.

He had told her before how he once, when he was just about her age, met Connor Bowers at the arcade. First he had to tell her that arcades were really popular when he was young, and that Derry’s arcade was the coolest spot in town at the time. This baffled her. Arcades were not really a thing anymore, it seemed.

”So why didn’t you tell mr Bowers that you thought he was cute when you met him again?” she asked.

”Because I didn’t feel the same way anymore. I hadn’t even thought of Connor Bowers in years, I didn’t even recognize him at first. But he recognized me, apparently, and then we talked for a bit. We never had the chance to really talk at the arcade. His cousin was… a man of his era,” Richie said humbly, then added with a mirthless chuckle, ”And a fucking psychopath. But that’s another story.”

He became quite good friends with Connor Bowers over the course of a couple of weeks. They rarely mentioned Henry and, without stating it out loud, they both understood why. They never really talked about the day at the arcade either, but Connor’s sometimes overly friendly nature was probably his way of apologizing. Richie forgave him a long time ago, knowing that unfortunate circumstances could make one do regretful things.

”Did he match you up with grandpa on purpose?” Sandra wondered.

”I don’t think he did it on purpose, but if I hadn’t met Connor Bowers all those years ago, and if I hadn’t met him again when came back to Derry, I wouldn’t have met your other grandpa. But it’s not just Connor who brought us together. Every event and unexpected turn led me to where I am today. Take one event away, and everything could have been different.”

”Butterfly effect.”

”Exactly,” Richie nodded. He was always surprised by when Sandra understood things. In his head she was still a kid, but she was growing up quickly. He smiled a little and continued, ”But even if every moment matters, I can’t deny that certain moments stand out as more important than others. And I think Connor’s barbecue is one of the most important moments in my life since that’s when I met Toivo.”

Never in a million years could Richie have imagined himself falling for an academic professor from Finland, out of all places. Richie hardly knew anything about the country aside from that it existed somewhere far up North. It never occurred to him that there were actual people who lived there just like some people live in the USA, in China and in Germany. When he thought about Finland, no image popped up in his mind except for cold winters maybe.

Toivo had lived in the States for twelve years but he still had an accent and he never missed an opportunity to teach someone a phrase or two in Finnish. He wore tweed suits and oxfords to work, knew lots about old art and classical music. He was the type of person that Richie would usually stay away from, knowing that he was likely going to be looked down upon for his former career as a comedian and for not ’behaving properly’.

The fact that Connor Bowers was friends with this man confused Richie at first, but Connor apparently liked Toivo well enough to let him stay at his house for a week because Toivo was so eager to explore Maine’s beautiful nature. This was in September and Derry was afire. The maples were shifting in countless shades of reds, oranges and yellows. The air was crisp but it was not yet too cold to be outside.

When Toivo arrived in Derry Connor had prepared a warm welcome; the grill was prepared, some meat, some vegetables, beer and a good whiskey waited for later. It was just a small gathering. Connor, Connor’s boyfriend and sister were there, both friends of Toivo as well, and Richie. He felt a bit awkward, like an intruder. When a man with combed hair and a messenger bag made out of shining leather joined them, Richie even considered leaving.

He didn’t dare speaking a word during the first twenty minutes, but by the end of the evening this Finnish man had proved himself to be the exact opposite of what Richie had originally expected him to be. When Richie made inappropriate jokes Toivo laughed like a braying donkey and he loosened his tie as soon as he stepped in through the door. That was a habit Tovio never changed and Richie loved how the messy version of Toivo belonged him only.

The messy Toivo who wandered around at the hospital without pants wasn’t the same Toivo as the man who ran his hand through his sand colored hair, breaking up the sleek pomade, with his tie loose around his neck and his feet on top of the table. Different types of messy. It was cruel how, despite all the miraculous technology in the world, there was nothing that could save Tovio from the elderly confusion and sickness. And yet, Richie couldn’t be mad. The illness didn’t creep into their lives until they were both old already. They met quite late in life, but they still got to share many years. For that he was forever grateful.

Richie, who started working as a teacher at Derry Middle School 2022, spent a significant amount of time telling his students that people who are well-dressed and have a nice vocabulary are not necessarily smarter than those who do not. Sometimes the student’s parents whispered to one another, wondering if mr Tozier’s preaching was actually just issues within his own marriage bleeding into his lectures. (”Is he just trying to tell his students to stay away from people like his own husband?”) But that was never true and Richie kept telling his students what he thought they needed to hear.

He emphasized the importance of not judging other people and that being a trouble-child is usually the side effect of being a troubled child, but that there’s hope for everyone. Every time he said those things he looked out over his classroom he rested his eyes for a bit longer on every little Richie who sat there in the room. Every little kid who was doodling dicks on the desk, restlessly bouncing with their legs, seizing every opportunity to make a joke and then letting out sighs of relief when everyone in class started laughing.

”Teachers like you are needed, more than any regular teacher,” Toivo always said, ”Because they speak to those who are in need. The students who are doing well already are not in the same urgent need of teachers who understand them and validate them.”

Although Richie was delighted to have found someone to share his life with, he felt a twinge of guilt when they first started seeing each other like more than friends. He felt like a traitor, someone who had abandoned the love of his life, a man who had fought til his death and whom he never had the chance to properly confess his feelings for. Sometimes the feeling intensified when he was teaching, because not only did he see a bunch of little Richies, but a fair amount of little Eddies too.

Richie had decided that he couldn’t love Toivo because of Eddie. One day when he was on his way to the pharmacy to pick up his ADHD-medication he made up his mind and started plotting how to tell Toivo that they weren’t meant to be. He couldn’t tell him the truth about Derry, about Pennywise and everything he had been through. In fact, he never did. Toivo died clueless. He only knew that Richie was troubled by something in the past, but out of fear or out of compassion, he never inquired anything about it.

The next morning when Richie was at home in his bathroom and opened the medicine box, he found a note inside. The message was short and clear, but the fact that there was a message was what made Richie weep like a baby.

_’GO MARRY HIM YOU PIECE OF SHIT I’M ROOTING FOR YOU’_

Even after all those years Richie knew that it was Eddie’s handwriting, and that settled it.

Richie was now eighty-two years old, slowly dying but content with what he called his life. Right now he was just writing the final chapter. He didn’t even regret the years he spent working as a comedian, he didn’t regret leaving Derry, coming back, getting married, having fun, crumbling of sorrow — all of those things made up his life and now he was ready to let it go.

The evening was turning into night. The peanut bowl on the table were almost empty. The kids were getting tired. A cozy, tired feeling lingered in the living room. The dog snored on Peter’s lap. The candles had burned down halfway, making drops of hot wax trickle over the edge of the holder. They were too full to even look at what was left of the cake, with its thick cream and strawberry jelly.

”I’m going to bed,” Richie croaked. He grunted as he forced himself out of the armchair. Gina hurried over to hand him the wooden cane. She held her arms out, ready to catch him in case the dizziness would hit him. It often did, but not this time.

”Goodnight, grandpa!” Kelly warbled, waving by the wrist.

She was Heidi’s youngest and had recently discovered waving. She waved at anyone, not only for greeting them or saying goodbye, but every time she saw them. She was now four years old and the latest addition to the family — at least for another three months. Peter and his wife were expecting a sixth baby. Richie knew that he’d never get to meet the child, so to him Kelly was the baby. She’d always be the baby.

Her eyelids were heavy and she sat on her father’s lap, dozing off and waking up every couple of minutes, but she refused to sleep since it was her birthday and the whole world was hers for a few more hours. Her party hat was placed on the table, where it still sparkled despite having lost its shape in the intense games she had played with her cousins and siblings.

Richie stopped at the threshold and waved back. Kelly waved again for good measure before her eyelids closed again. Richie ingested the view of his family, everyone except Sandra. And Tovio, of course. Almost the whole family. He met Sandra a while ago so at least he knew what she looked like these days, but he wished that she had been there. Yet, he knew very well what it felt like to be young and yearn for independence, of being someone else that’s not just someone’s daughter, child, sibling.

One day she could find her way back, and one day she would be happy that she spent some time getting to know her grandfathers while they were still alive. Richie was sure of that. And she was the one who’d get to pass the story on to her younger siblings and cousin. Sandra even knew Richie better than Gina, Heidi and Peter. But she didn’t know everything. Nobody did.

Maybe if they gathered all together and everyone contributed with a small piece of the story, they’d be able to see Richie Tozier as a whole person, and not just their annoying father or playful grandfather. Sandra knew that he was once a child who biked around in Derry with his friends, that he was restless and aching for more than Derry could offer at the time. But nobody, not even Sandra, knew the truth about how Richie became friends with the half-deaf old Bill, or how come Mike Hanlon — known as Derry’s ghost, a man who seemingly didn’t know anyone, who had no wife, no children, who could be spotted walking around all by himself on the fields late at night — could talk to Richie for hours. And nobody knew about Eddie and Stanley, whose graves Richie visited every week. Not even Toivo.

”Good night everyone!” Richie said. ”And happy birthday, Kelly.”

When Gina understood that Richie could walk on his own, she sat down again and reached for the last peanuts. She smiled at him as if she was proud that he had managed to stay up this late without getting random aches or dizziness. She worried too much about him these days.

”Good night, dad,” she said.

Richie slowly made it into the guest bedroom which was on the same floor as the living room, the door next to the kitchen. His legs wouldn’t move swiftly these days. His feet shuffled across the floor, the floor that Gina and her husband had spent a fortune polishing. On the walls there were both photos and art. You could see that people lived there, it wasn’t an IKEA magazine like the kitchen that Richie had seen through the window that day in June 2020. Well, this wasn’t his own house, but it was his family’s so that was good enough.

Richie didn’t long for his own apartment. He said goodbye to it before Peter picked him up and drove him over to Gina’s house. Since Tovio had died the place had been so awfully quiet at night. This was the right place to be, Richie knew that into the core — his daughter’s home in Derry, where the voices belonging to his children and grandchildren could be heard through the walls. He didn’t want to be elsewhere.

The guest bed was made with beige sheets. A string of fairy lights swirled around the curtain rod. A faint scent of fresh laundry pervaded the air. Richie let his clothes remain on as he laid down on top of the bed. He clasped his hands on his stomach and took a deep breath. He was ready.

Eddie was waiting for him. Stanley was waiting for him. Ben was waiting for him. Bill, Mike and Beverly would soon join them. They’d be together again. Richie was sure of this, because their souls had always gravitated towards one another. They always found a way to connect. Still, after all these years, Richie didn’t understand exactly what happened and how it could be possible, but they’d be together, that much was certain. It was written in the stars, or whatever people say. Fate. Destiny. God’s will. Who knows really?

Richie closed his eyes.

Then the door opened and Felix stepped into the guest room. He sat down at the edge of the bed, apparently obvious to the fact that his grandpa was trying to pass away peacefully. Richie opened his eyes again. Felix’s legs just barely reached the floor. His hands rested on his lap. The playful spark in his eyes had dwindled and, maybe for the first time, he looked at Richie gravely.

”I found the clubhouse, grandpa, the one you told me about. It’s still there. Would you mind if I showed it to my friends?”

”Go ahead. Please do show them.”

”You know, we’ve been thinking about wanting a clubhouse, but we don’t know how to build one. The one you built is so cool! It’s like a real house! I can’t believe you built it in the Barrens, it must have taken so long. How did you even get all the material out there?! Like, there’s a whole bed in there! Did you drag all the way from home?”

”We used magic, that’s how,” Richie chuckled.

”Oh, come on!” Felix rolled his eyes. He started bouncing restlessly on the bed. ”We could be the next generation of your club. That would be really cool, right? I should be the leader of course, since it’s my grandfather is the one who built the house.”

”I didn’t build much to be honest. It was my old friend Ben who did all the heavy work. But by old tradition you should let the Denbrough kid be the leader.”

”Are you kidding me?! The Denbrough kid? You mean Jackie Denbrough?” Felix frowned. ”He’s so short and he can’t even throw a ball straight, and on top of that he believes in weird things. Like, during lunch break he prays to some kind of spirit by repeating mantras. All the teachers say that he’s possessed. I don’t know if he is, but everyone — literally everyone — knows that he’s a loser!”

Richie knew that the reason why Felix was arguing with him on this was because he was, despite claiming otherwise, a very nice kid. He didn’t break rules, instead he forced the authorities to change the rule. He would never break a promise, he would never let anyone but Jackie Denbrough be the leader if that’s what Richie had demanded. Now he was desperately flailing with his arms and he looked pleadingly at Richie as he kept mentioning reasons why Bill’s grandson was not suited for the position as a leader. Richie liked at the fact that the last thing he’d bring into the world was chaos. He could imagine Felix and his cool friends forced under the command of the weirdo kid Denbrough. What a sight! Richie hoped dearly that he’d get to watch it from above.

”Perfect.” Richie grinned and closed his eyes again. ”Now, kid, get out. I’m tired.”

He heard Felix close the door behind him, sighing deeply.

A next generation of Losers was a splendid last thought before drifting off into the eternal rest. Something told him though, that he wouldn’t get much rest. And he had spent a lifetime preparing roasts and comebacks. His friends would plead for the mundane world to take him back. How fun. Dying was going to be such a blast. Richie couldn’t wait. He begged the spirits to take him for fucks sake, and told the spirits that they were motherfuckers if they let him remain alive for more than five minutes. Maybe it worked, because it didn’t take long until the world around him started faded.

As his soul left his old body on the bed in guest room, something slapped his face in a separate dimension.

”Are you serious?! You’re letting Bill’s kid be the leader?!” was the first thing Richie heard Stanley say since saying goodbye that day 1994.


End file.
